Square of Speed

The fastest position is the streamline — arms extended, hands stacked, body rigid and torpedo-shaped. Drag rises with the square of speed: swim twice as fast and drag quadruples.

This is why breaking world records gets exponentially harder. Trimming a tenth of a second at the top means fighting far more resistance than the same gain at slower speeds. Elite swimmers spend hours perfecting body alignment, because at the highest level technique beats raw effort.