Maintaining your momentum from underwater dolphins to swimming,
requires a clean breakout, avoiding resistance.
Why do it:
If you’ve worked hard on creating great underwater dolphins,
you don’t want to throw that speed away by have a sloppy breakout.
How to do it:
Learn your underwater dolphin count.
Either the number of kicks to the 15 meter mark,
or to the point where you’ll run out of air if you can’t hold it in.
Get your body parallel to the surface and initiate the first stroke focusing on driving the non-pulling hand forward.
Rotate your body so your shoulder is completely exposed above the surface before the recovery starts.
How to do it really well (the fine points):
Learn to be aware of how it feels when you get it wrong.
While this swimmer is doing a wonderful job during the underwater dolphins,
he initiates the first pull too early, while his body is still too deep.
We can still see his entire arm underwater when he starts his recovery.
One or two more dolphin kicks would allow him to get a bit closer to the surface.
Or, if he’s running out of air because he’s always releasing air,
don’t go as deep on the initial push so you can come up just a bit earlier.
Creating a clean recovery will allow for a better transition into fast swimming,
and start your swim off with great rotation and pop of the shoulder.