Michael Phelps is reckoned to be the greatest Olympic athlete in history. Phelps has collected 16 Olympic medals, eight in a magnificent fashion at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He has accomplished a great deal as the early age of 23.It is unquestionable that Michael Phelps was built for swimming. His broad shoulders, size 14 feet and incredible 6ft 7 in reach has made him a force to be reckonned with. He also gets a lot of strength from his relatively short legs. His feet can rotate an extra 15 degrees more than a regular person and his knees are double-jointed. This gives him the ability to fully straighten so hi can use his feet like powerful flippers. He is unquestionably the closest thing to a "human dolphin."
It's not only these inherited advantages that make Phelps the great swimmer that he is. Phelps is the hardest working swimmer, following an inredible workout and diet schedule.
Michael Phelps Workout
Have you ever wondered what the Michael Phelps workout consists of? He goes six hours a day and six days a week. Nothing to it. It doesn't matter if his birthday, Christmas day, or family event falls on a training day, he goes through his full day of training, no questions asked. His incredible persistence and dedication to his training has made him the champion swimmer that he is today.
Michael Phelps attacks his training from all angles by combining his swimming workouts with unique weight training workouts.
In the pool...
Michael Phelps spends large portions of his time working out in the pool. The in-pool portion consists of swimming 80km each week which equals over 13km each training day. His sample workout looks like this:
Warm Up:
- 6x (50 free, 50 side kick, 50 fly drill, 50 pull buoy, 50 im, 50 im)
- 20x 100 on 1:15min (25 fly, 50free, 25fly)
- 500 stroke (50 kick 50 drill)
Main Set:
- 2000 timed kick stroke
- 4x100 IM drill continuous
- 10x 200 on 3:00min [where odd =free (moderate pace); even=fly (fast pace)]
- 24x25 fly on :30min (1-ez drill, 1-no breath, 1-sprint)
- 500 abdominal exercises and static stretching
Phelps likes to incorporate a lot of training tools in his swimming workouts. This gives him much-needed variation to his workouts.
"I use a bunch of Speedo training gear, like kickboards, pull buoys, training paddles, and snorkels," Phelps says. "I'll also listen to music during some of my longer workouts with H20 Audio's waterproof headphones."
In the gym...
Phelps doesn't like spending too much time in the weight room. He likes his workouts effective and efficient. He combines his dry-land training with a lot of sport-specific functional training.
"In preparation for Beijing, I started adding weightlifting to my dry-land work," Phelps says. "Since then, we've expanded the amount of weights I am using, and I'm running more than I ever have. Pushups and pull-ups have also always been essential."
To help him improve his already powerful stroke, Phelps likes to incorporate exercises like the straight wood chopper and diagonal wood chopper.
Michael Phelps offers advice on resting and recovering.
The best way to benefit from your toughest workouts is to let your body fully recover before training hard again. "Sleep is also a big part of my recovery," Phelps says. "It's really important that my body gets enough rest so that I'm ready to go for my next race or training session."
Michael Phelps Diet
I doubt there are many people that can keep up with the Michael Phelps diet. Phelps is capable of consuming more calories in a single day than many of us can in an entire week. He consume over 10,000 calories each training day. Note that the average person's daily calorie consumption is 2000 calories. Eating this many calories is a workout in itself and takes great dedication and planning. But Phelps most definitely NEEDS to consume this much in order to balance out the 1000 calories he burns every hour of swimming. You do the math.
Phelp's typical breakfast consists of:
Before practice:
- Cereal or oatmeal
- Three fried egg sandwiches topped with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise
- Omelet
- Porridge
- Three pancakes
- Two cups of coffee
- One pound (500g) of pasta
- Two ham and sheese sandwiches
- Energy drinks (1000 calories)
- Pound (500g) of pasta
- Entire pizza
- Energy drinks
- Protein supplements
