Looking to up your dolphin kick skills? Here are the best fins to improve undulation, power, and dolphin kick technique.
A fast, crisp underwater dolphin kick is essential for supercharge your performance on race day. It powers a faster start, gets you out of the turns faster, and it’s a weapon that you can deploy for faster times.
Perfecting dolphin kick timing and technique is essential—and the right fins can help you accelerate improvement underwater by improving undulation, increasing feel for the water, and building the power and precision that sends PB’s scurrying for cover.
Which makes choosing the right fins that match your dolphin kick goals all the more important. While there are definitely some pros and cons to dolphin kicking with fins, the right ones make your time in the water more effective.
Here’s what you need to know.
FINIS Floating Fins
🥇 Best for beginners
Younger and developing swimmers just dipping their proverbial toes in the water with a faster dolphin kick should start with fins that give maximum feel for the water. The FINIS Floating Fins are the perfect fin for this swimmer.
It has a soft rubber construction, youth and adult sizes, and a long-blade fin that exaggerates the body wave motion when dolphin kicking. This helps swimmers to better learn the mechanics of undulation, from initiating the movement from the trunk to kicking “through” their toes and whipping the feet and displacing lots of water.
Why they work for beginners/developing swimmers:
- Ideal for learning undulation. The longer blade forces swimmers to kick from the trunk and hips, helping them feel the full range of the upkick and downkick phases.
- Affordable and durable. Unlike pricier short blade fins (I know—smaller fin but higher price tag?), these fins are inexpensive. They are also made of soft, buoyant rubber, which means when you push off like a rocket and one slips off, they won’t sink to the depths.
- Youth and Adult sizes. From XXXS to XXL, the FINIS Floating fins are fit for swimmers of all ages and foot sizes.
The FINIS Floating Fins are the right fins for beginner and intermediate swimmers looking to build a solid foundation in underwater dolphin kicking.
DMC Elite Max Fins
🥇 Best for experienced swimmers
Experienced swimmers looking to crank up their underwater dolphin kick will love the DMC Elite Max Fins.
These bad boys consistently rank atop our list of the best training fins for swimmers thanks to their ultra-comfortable and soft construction and short blade design, which better mimics kick tempo/frequency of normal kicking.
That last point is important for boosting your dolphin kick, as fins can significantly decrease kick tempo, especially long blade fins (De Matos et al., 2023). Short blade fins help you train the kick you want and not just sail across the pool with different kinematics than your fin-less kick.
Why we love them:
- Short blade design. Better replicates the tempo and frequency of your natural dolphin kick, so you’re building specific strength and technique when kicking with them.
- Soft silicone construction. Super comfy and built to last forever. Seriously the most comfortable training fins I’ve ever worn, and the competition isn’t all that close.
- Side rails for increased control. The fins have rails along the sides that “catch” more water, increasing control of water flow.
The DMC Elite Max are the best choice for experienced swimmers who want to fine-tune technique, build kick power, and maintain high tempo without throwing off race-day rhythm.
FINIS Foil Monofin
🥇 Best for developing power and undulation
Alrighty, let’s get our mermaid/merman on with the FINIS Foil, a single-blade fin that was designed specifically to help swimmers build a more powerful and “flowy” underwater dolphin kick.
Developed with Pablo Morales, an Olympic champion butterflyer and the primary fin of choice for Misty Hyman, one of the sport’s all-time great underwater dolphin kickers, the FINIS Foil has an open heel design and large rubber blade that helps swimmers displace a TON of water with each kick.
Monofins are an essential fin for swimmers serious about their dolphin kick. It naturally promotes better undulation, stronger upkick, increased kicking speeds, and better transitions between kick phases.
Why it belongs in your swim bag:
- One big, dolphin blade. The Foil forces you to kick as a single unit, engaging the full posterior chain, from the trunk, hip, knees, and down to your toes.
- Perfect for more advanced swimmers. The larger blade add significant torque to the knees and ankles—especially as the foot pockets are tilted slightly inward, promoting increased hip rotation—so a good baseline of UDK strength is a must.
- Great for undulation. It really forces you to undulate in order to generate propulsion. You can’t really hide from it when both feet are joined at the big toe and the blade is this large.
The FINIS Foil Monofin is essential for advanced swimmers looking to master undulation and build massive UDK power.
The Final Lap
A fast, thundering underwater dolphin kick is one of the things that separates good from great swimmers. And while improving it can feel a little frustrating at times, the right set of fins can help you accelerate technique and conditioning levels in your dolphin kick.
To recap:
- The FINIS Floating Fins are the top fins for beginners looking to nail the basics of a smooth dolphin kick and learn the movement.
- The DMC Elite Max Fins are a short-blade fin that experienced swimmers can use to better mirror kick tempo without fins.
- And the FINIS Foil are an essential for swimmers truly serious about mastering undulation, conditioning, and achieving maximum thrust with every kick.
Choose the right fins for your dolphin kicking, hit the pool, and take your dolphin kicking to new heights.
Happy kicking!
The Ultimate Guide to a Faster Underwater Dolphin Kick
Want help leveling up your underwater dolphin kick? The Dolphin Kick Manual is the ultimate resource for helping swimmers and swim coaches develop a world-class underwater dolphin kick.
The Dolphin Kick Manual is a beastly 240+ pages of actionable insights and research into elite dolphin kicking technique and performance. It details everything from mastering undulation to vortex recapturing to structuring a dryland program for dolphin kicking success.
It combines evidence-based insights with a collection of 20 ready-to-go sets and a 6-week Action Plan to help swimmers set a course for dolphin kicking success.
Train smarter and kick faster.
