Which swimming style is faster?

Michael Phelps, who we know closely with his records and medals in the Olympics, has a feature that distinguishes him from other swimmers. If you watch Phelps with underwater cameras, you can see that he moves like a dolphin underwater for a long time when starting races and turns. According to George Washington University Rajat Mittal, who has been studying the movement of dolphins and other marine mammals in the water since 2003, this movement, known as dolphin kick, allows swimmers to travel much faster than other swimming styles.

The dolphin kick, as the name suggests, is a swimming style adapted from the underwater movements of dolphins and other marine mammals. During this movement, the body acts like a wave underwater. The height of the wave formed by their bodies and the frequency of doing this movement are factors that affect the speed of the swimmers. When this swimming style is carried out completely under the water without leaving the surface of the water, it provides great advantages to swimmers in terms of speed and energy efficiency. Because swimmers move forward by pushing the water while paddling or kicking. Therefore, these movements create more propulsion when carried out completely under water. Also, when swimmers move close to the surface, they form a wave on the surface of the water. The source of the energy required to form a wave is the swimmer himself. In other words, the swimmer uses some of the energy spent while pushing the water to create a surface wave, not a propulsion.

Although the dolphin kick allows swimmers to maintain the momentum they have gained, especially at the start of the races and turns, the swimmers are not allowed to swim more than 15 meters underwater by the International Swimming Federation (FINA).