PIV measurements during the dolphin kick of a human swimmer

Only a few methods to visualize and quantify flow have been so far applied to human swimming. They range from the observation of natural or injected air bubbles to the orientation of tufts attached to the swimmers body. Recently, Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) – which has been evolved into one of the standard methods for flow visualization in fish locomotion – has been applied to the hand stroke of crawl swimmers and to the human undulatory motion (dolphin kick).