🔷 OUR NEW DRILL: The Dolphin Draft 🐬💨

A Fresh Take on Core Engagement, Turbulence and Teamwork

Hey Swimmers,

At Swim Smooth, we’re always looking for ways to keep things fresh, fun, and effective for our Squad swimmers – and this week’s innovation might just be one of our best yet!

The majority of this Squad has been swimming with me for >20 years. That’s ~12,000 sessions delivered! Keeping things fresh, new and innovative is tough - but it keeps me and my coaches on our toes!

Enter: The Dolphin Draft 🐬💨.

This playful yet powerful new drill was born out of a lightbulb moment during one of my own swim sets. I was ticking off 10 x 400s and wondering why things suddenly felt harder, slower, rougher… until I realised I was swimming directly behind someone doing dolphin kick on their back, fins on, legs whipping up a storm! It reminded me instantly of the choppy conditions during the Rottnest Channel Swim – that kind of unpredictable, swirling turbulence you can’t quite escape.

Inspired, I brought the idea to the squad the next morning:

Here’s how we ran it:

• Swimmers paired up.

• One swimmer wore fins and performed dolphin kick on their back.

• Their partner swam freestyle directly behind, drafting through the wake.

• After 4 x 50m, the roles switched.

It was fun, challenging, and full of giggles – not to mention a surprise workout for the abs and hip flexors.

Dolphin kick is a surprisingly good way of developing your core strength - just be careful not to overdo it as you will feel it the next day!

The dolphin kick – a simultaneous motion of the legs moving together – mimics the undulating flow of a dolphin’s tail. We encouraged everyone to start gently and build the effort progressively. Some were surprisingly quick off the mark, generating real turbulence and giving their partners a true open water simulation!

What made it special was how different it felt. As one long-time squad member remarked:

“In 17 years of swimming here, we’ve never done that before!”

Need Some Innovation in Your Swim?

Keeping training innovative isn’t just about novelty – it’s about keeping swimmers engaged, challenged, and smiling, and no-one does that better than our Coaches, all of whom contribute to the World’s Biggest Swim Squad (WBSS) with their new ideas on the GURU.

If you’ve never done dolphin kick before, it’s a great way to improve core strength, develop a feel for rhythm in the water, and understand the dynamic between body position and propulsion. And when combined with drafting, it becomes a drill that enhances awareness, positioning, and adaptability – all key skills for open water success.

So, grab a buddy, pop those fins on, and give it a try. The Dolphin Draft might just become your new favourite too.

Give it a try and let us know how you go?

Your Coach,

Paul