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Michael Phelp's Training and Diet

By Matthew Thorn

       If it quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. If it swims like a dolphin, it’s probably Michael Phelps. With his long body and flexible joints he was made for swimming. His amazing body and incredible perseverance combined with his diet, training, and physical therapy have made him the greatest swimmer in the world. 

      To fuel the swimming phenomenon we call Michael Phelps, he consumes approximately 8,000 calories a day.  For breakfast he eats three sandwiches of fried eggs with cheese, lettuce, tomato, fried onions, and mayonnaise.  He also eats an omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast with powdered sugar, and three chocolate chip pancakes.  His breakfast contains about 3,000 calories.  After his morning exercises, he eats lunch.  His lunch consists of 1 pound of pasta, two ham and cheese sandwiches, and approximately 1,000 calories of energy drinks.  For dinner, he consumes another pound of pasta, some pizza, and more energy drinks.  Daily, he eats four times the amount of calories a normal person requires.

     “Why does he need all this?” you ask.  He needs it because he burns roughly 1,000 calories an hour training. Michael Phelps trains for six hours a day, six days a week.  He swims approximately 50 miles each week. His coach, Bob Bowman, has set a rigorous training program for Phelps, which he does in his hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan.   For a warm up, he swims 4.05 km using many different types of strokes. Then he does several timed strokes, improving his speed. Finally he does some crunches to improve his abdominal muscles.  This rigorous training program is one of the reasons Phelps is the champion swimmer he is.

     After racing or training, Michael Phelps gets two massages and an ice bath.  The massages help him increase his range of motion and give him more fluidity. They also elongate his muscles and increase post competition recovery.   The ice bath has the capability to increase athletic performance by 2-3%.  It also acts as a natural anti inflammatory, dropping his core body temperature allowing him to recover faster.  These play an important role in his training by allowing him to swim more often and reducing the damage to his muscles.

     All of his training was worth it when you see how well he performed in the Beijing Olympics.  Winning eight gold medals, he swam in 20 different races, including qualifying and medal races. He broke seven world records and one Olympic record, sometimes with only an hour between races. He captivated the international audience with his fingertip win by 1/100^th second in the 100-meter butterfly. All of America cheered as Phelps led the USA relay team to victory against the favored French Team. Phelps now has the records for most career medals, and the most medals earned at a single Olympics.