14 DAY TRIAL // Michael Phelps, who won 8 gold medals at the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, has had his highs and lows but he likes to consider them all a good learning experience. He is featured in the latest issue of Details magazine, where he opens up more on that.
After his amazing run in the previous edition of the Olympics, Phelps hit a rough patch, where he did not know where he could go next.
As he puts it, after you've won 8 gold medals at the most prestigious sporting event in the world, can you really go any higher?
For a while there, Phelps assumed the answer was no, so he just gave up and started gaining weight.
“At that point, I just didn’t have anything. It was weird going from the highest of the high, the biggest point of your life – winning eight gold medals – and then saying, 'All right, where do I go from here?' I wasn’t motivated. I did nothing, literally nothing, for a long time,” Phelps recalls.
As a result, he gained about 25 pounds (11.3 kg) and had to have friends draw his attention to it.
“A friend of mine and I were playing football on the beach in Miami, and somebody got a picture of us and put it all over the place. And he’s like, 'Bro, you gotta start working out, man. You are fat.' So I started going through the motions again,” Phelps says.
He also talks about training for 6 years without a break for the 2008 Olympics and of whether he'll still be swimming after he retires.
He doesn't know the answer to that yet, but he's determined to retire from professional competitions by 30 – but first he must reach his maximum potential.
In the same interview (which is truly worth a read), Michael shoots down reports that he eats 12,000 calories a day to stay in shape and addresses the pop smoking incident he was involved in some time ago.
He calls that one one of the many mistakes he's made, and admits he has plenty of those – but never the same one twice.
“People make a big deal out of what I eat, but it’s not that crazy. I had a three-egg omelet and three pieces of French toast and coffee this morning. For recovery, I think it’s a big deal to eat within a half-hour after you exercise,” Michael says.
“Otherwise I just try to put carbs into my system before I swim and then load up on the protein after. I don’t count calories. Whether it’s Sour Patch Kids or Reese’s or a bag of chips, if I feel like eating it, I’m going to eat it,” he explains.
The full interview is here.