Who is the most stressed athlete in this year’s Olympic Games? The answer is not Liu Xiang, but the American swimmer Michael? Phelps. Liu Xiang just need to survive a 13-second final on the line, Phelps needs to survive 8 finals, as long as the miss once, before the work is lost.
”Michael’s greatest strength is his concentration.” Phelps’ coach Bob Bowman said in a statement. Bowman (Bob Bowman) in the evaluation of his protégé said, “He is very good at resolving the pressure put on him by the outside world, and the tension of the Olympic Games has little effect on him. His ability to stay focused was the surest way to win his eight golds.”
Coach Bowman apparently said this on purpose, because the most frequently asked question by reporters was about a disease Phelps had as a child – attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
The tirelessly naughty bag
”Your son is so naughty, he can never focus on anything.” Phelps’ elementary school teacher complained to his mother, Debbie.
”Maybe it’s because you teach such a poor curriculum that it doesn’t engage him.” Debbie retorted.
Debbie loved her son too much to allow anyone to say anything bad about Michael. However, she also had a vague feeling in her heart that something was not quite right with Michael. The boy could not be idle, either running around the yard, or scurrying around the house, even sitting down and always playing with something in his hands. All the things that can be broken in the house were broken by him all over, no matter how Debbie reprimanded useless.
In fact, Michael was born to give his mother a lot of trouble. He was born on June 30, 1985 and weighed 8 and a half pounds when he was first born, with a length of 58 centimeters, definitely considered a super baby.
The Phelps family belongs to the typical American middle class, father Fred is a police officer in Baltimore, the capital of Maryland, and mother Debbie is a high school teacher in the city. The couple had three children, Michael’s two sisters Whitney and Hilary inherited their father Fred’s athletic genes and joined the “North Baltimore Aquatic Club” to practice swimming from a young age.
But, like most boys in America, Michael’s first sport was baseball, winning a local elementary school home run derby. He later took up football and lacrosse, both of which he played well.
”Back then I always had three sets of game uniforms and equipment in the trunk of my car.” Debbie recalls, “Every weekend we drove him to baseball in the morning, then to football in the afternoon, followed by lacrosse. Michael seemed to have an endless supply of energy and would come home at night and play basketball in the yard with the neighbor kids for a while before he would rest.”
Because he was so playful, Michael never got good grades in school, mostly B’s and C’s, and even D’s in a few subjects.
Because of his sister, Michael went to the club to learn swimming for the first time at the age of 7. “At first I hated swimming and often cried and cried, not wanting to get in the water.” Phelps later recalled in an autobiography, “When the coach saw that I was so afraid of the water, he promised to let me practice backstroke first, without letting me see the bottom of the pool, so I wouldn’t be afraid. So I learned the backstroke first and gradually began to enjoy the sport.”
Since then, Debbie’s car trunk has another set of equipment.
The happy childhood came to an abrupt end when Michael was 9 years old. That year, Debbie and Fred divorced and Debbie took custody of their three children. Soon after, the doctor told her the sad news that Michael did have a problem, he had “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” (ADHD). This is a genetic disease, common in children and adolescents, the prevalence rate is about 5%, suffering from this disease children inattentive, poor self-control, hyperactive, but often do things in a sloppy manner.
Debbie accepted the doctor’s recommendation that Michael take a central nervous system stimulant called Ritalin to try to control the condition. In fact, Debbie, a graduate student in child psychology, didn’t like the idea of putting her children on neurological drugs, and felt that patient guidance and encouragement was the best way to treat ADHD. But at that time, she was too busy to take care of 3 children by herself.
Fortunately, a year later, in 1995, a fatherly man came into Phelps’ life.
Bob? Bowman graduated from Florida State University with a degree in child psychology and was the captain of the school’s swim team. After college he chose to coach, and after bouncing around a few places was hired by the North Baltimore Aquatic Club. Bowman is an old-school guy, likes classical music, meticulous and disciplined; Phelps is the opposite, likes hip-hop and video games, loves to be naughty and often get into trouble. The first contact between the two was not friendly, it was a swimming competition after Phelps’ teammates played with each other, the locker room made a mess. Bowman mistakenly thought it was Phelps who did it, so he called him aside:
”Michael? Phelps, what have you done?”
”I didn’t do anything,” Phelps shot back, “they did.”
”Then why are they all shouting your name?”
”I don’t know, you ask them.”
”No, Michael, I just want to ask you, what the hell did you do?”
Phelps didn’t remember how that incident ended up, but he clearly remembered that he secretly swore at the time that he couldn’t let this nasty Bowman be his coach.
A few months later, Bowman was officially appointed as the coach of the club’s junior men’s team.
One of the first things Bowman did after taking office was to give the boys a physical fitness test. His test method was much more difficult than before: swim 400m freestyle, then do 4 consecutive 100m breaststroke sprints, then swim 1 400m medley, and finally do 4 consecutive 100m freestyle sprints. Each child must do three consecutive groups of such tests, Bowman was surprised to find that Phelps did the last group of sprint speed than the first group.
After the test, Bowman called Phelps aside.
”Aren’t you tired?” Bowman pretended to ask carelessly.
”I never get tired.” Phelps replied really carelessly.
A few days later, Bowman personally approached the Phelps couple and said to them seriously: “Michael is very suitable for swimming, so don’t let him play baseball and lacrosse anymore, and follow me to focus on swimming. I plan to have him compete in the Olympic Trials in 2000, make the U.S. national team for the Olympics in 2004, and break the world record in 2008 ……”
Bowman’s persistence impressed Debbie. With his mother’s persuasion, Phelps finally decided to endure the pain and give up his other sports hobbies to concentrate on swimming.
Bowman was a tough coach who firmly believed that only pre-teens could improve their cardio through heavy exercise training, and that it would be difficult for athletes to improve further as adults. So he asked the 11-year-old Phelps to immediately start heavy exercise training, practicing seven days a week and swimming at least five hours a day. A few years down the line, Phelps’ cardio has improved significantly. He now has a staggering 15,000 milliliters of lung capacity, which allows him to reduce the number of breath changes and increase the distance he can swim in the water during a race.
Bowman also modified Phelps’ freestyle stroke, increasing the original 2 strokes per stroke to 6 strokes per water beat leg. This is actually a standard action for adult swimmers, but a little early for the 11-year-old Phelps, so Phelps was very resistant at first, unwilling to change the action. Bowman’s attitude was simple and brutal: don’t change or don’t practice, go home and stay there! Under Bowman’s pressure, Phelps had to give in.
After practicing for a while, Bowman again made fine adjustments according to the situation. He admitted to Phelps: “You’re too young to do the whole thing six times.” Unexpectedly, the words instead became a provocation, Phelps gritted his teeth and insisted, but soon did so.
The change in technical details allowed Phelps to quickly improve his swimming performance and become the national champion of his age group. More importantly, through this incident, Bowman discovered that Phelps was a competitive person at heart, who hated losing and would do anything to win. For professional athletes, this is an extremely rare quality.
Phelps’ desire to win has cured his “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder”. Whenever he participates in swimming competitions, Phelps is transformed into a particularly focused person. In fact, Phelps stopped taking Ritalin after two years, because since he started formal swimming practice, his illness is all healed. What’s even better is that the exuberance brought to him by this disease happens to come in handy in the pool, for example, the lactic acid metabolism in Phelps’ body is significantly different from that of a regular person. Genadis Sokolovas, director of the physiology department of the U.S. national swimming team. Sokolovas (Genadijus Sokolovas), PhD, had spent 20 years measuring the lactic acid content of 5,000 swimmers and found that most were between 10 and 15 millimoles per liter of blood at the end of the race, while Phelps measured 5.6 millimoles shortly after breaking the world record in the 100-meter butterfly in 2003!
”At the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne, we measured Michael’s lactate levels throughout the race after the race and it never exceeded 6 millimoles.” Phelps’ assistant coach, Jon Urban, said. Urbanchek (Jon Urbanchek) told this reporter in an exclusive interview, “We did the same full tracking test at the Beijing Olympics, and the results were 1 to 2 millimoles higher than Melbourne on average, with the highest value even close to 9.”
Phelps got seven gold medals in Melbourne, only to lose a relay gold medal because of teammate fouls. “This year’s Olympics was so competitive that Michael swam a little harder in the ‘Water Cube’.” Ubanchek added, “But his lactate numbers show that he still has potential, and the fact that he came later in several events makes him more of a long-distance runner. I think he is the most likely to break the 400m freestyle world record held by Thorpe, but unfortunately this year this race clashes with the 400m medley time.”
According to data provided by ESPN, for some reason that remains unclear, Phelps’ muscles produce 50 percent less lactic acid than normal at the same contraction strength. And according to Ubanczyk, Phelps’ muscles have a naturally strong ability to neutralize lactic acid, and his muscles have a higher tolerance for lactic acid than normal. Ubanczyk even suspects that Phelps has some kind of special enzyme that can reuse lactic acid and turn it into energy.
”Some things are really hard to explain.” Ubanczyk told the Journal, “We all know that high-intensity training improves an athlete’s ability to tolerate lactic acid, which is the main reason for high-intensity training. However, I have several world-class swimmers under me, they usually eat and live with Phelps and train together, but they are just tired than him first.”
Information shows that the international exercise physiology community has been controversial about whether lactic acid directly affects athletic ability, but lactic acid is indeed a metabolic waste discharged after muscle exercise, and there is an indisputable correlation between high levels of lactic acid and the degree of muscle fatigue. Much of the reason for Phelps’ feat at this year’s Olympics is due to his ability to recover his muscles; he competed a total of 17 times over the course of eight days, and although half of them were preliminaries, he couldn’t have taken it completely lightly.
According to Dr. Sokolovas’ speculation, Phelps’ exercise intensity at this year’s Olympics was equivalent to a track and field athlete running eight to nine marathons in a row over a two-week period.
The tireless naughty boy of the day has finally found a reasonable outlet for his innate high energy.
Marfan’s Syndrome
Bauman’s minor in college was classical music composition, and his favorite work was Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3: “It’s very neat and well-structured from melody to tone, and it’s very much like me.”
But instead of following the plan set by Bauman, Phelps was a full four years ahead of schedule!
In 2000, at the age of 15, Phelps participated in the U.S. Olympic Trials for the first time and surprisingly was selected to become the youngest member of the U.S. Men’s National Swimming Team in over 60 years.
Just into the team, the old team members like to joke about his big ears, but they soon could not laugh, because they were surprised to find that Phelps body only the pair of ears can be considered unsuitable for swimming, the rest of the body is simply designed by God specifically for swimming.
He is 1.93 meters tall, but his arm length is a staggering 2.01 meters. If Da? If Leonardo da Vinci had used his body as a model, I am afraid he would not have been able to draw the famous anatomical drawing of the human body.
What is even stranger is that his torso is very long, equivalent to a person of 2.05 meters, while his legs are exceptionally short, comparable to a person of 1.80 meters in height. Because of this, the normal human body’s center of gravity is just above the navel, while Phelps’ center of gravity is 10 cm above the navel.
His hands are also large with long fingers. Those who watched the Olympic 100m butterfly final were certainly impressed by his long fingers.
He wears size 48 shoes, which is also a number that only people over 2 meters tall would wear.
As we all know, when a person is swimming his arms are equivalent to oars, the longer the arms, the bigger the palms, the more efficient the paddling. The legs, however, are the main source of resistance, the longer the legs the greater the resistance in the water. Phelps’ pair of short but powerful legs just make up for the above deficiencies.
The swing of the torso is the main driving force for the swimmer to move forward. Phelps’ long torso and forward weight shift just allows him to easily stay parallel to the horizontal, further reducing drag. In addition, Phelps now weighs only 83 kg, with a fat percentage of 4 percent. These two figures are simply perfect for the athlete.
When Phelps changed into his swimsuit and began to move his body, the veteran team members were even more surprised to be unable to close their mouths. Phelps’ joints are exceptionally flexible, and his shoulders and elbows can bend in all directions, which allows him to make any movement in the water naturally, further increasing the efficiency of his stroke. The same is true of his ankles, which bend backward at an angle 15 degrees more than other athletes. This extra 15 degrees makes those big feet of his look more like a pair of God’s special flippers, hitting the water much faster and more efficiently than normal people.
Such a body and flexibility, coupled with superb cardiorespiratory function and resistance to lactic acid, one has to lament that God is not fair, Phelps was born to be a piece of swimming material.
However, things are not as simple as one might think.
A daily training, Phelps just jumped into the water felt a little wrong, heart rate is unusually fast, almost to jump out of the chest. Phelps reported his feelings to Bowman, who immediately arranged for a doctor to do an EKG for him, and has done it many times since then. Phelps was a bit puzzled by this, and Bowman told him that this was a routine checkup that all professional athletes undergo.
But Bowman knew in his heart that Phelps’ fate depended entirely on the test results. We’re not talking about an athletic career, but a life.
When Bowman first met Phelps, he suspected that the boy was suffering from a rare genetic disease – Marfan’s syndrome (Marfan Syndrome). The disease, which affects only about 1 in 5,000 people, involves a mutation in the patient’s FBN1 gene, which encodes the protein Fibrillin-1, resulting in an abnormality. This is a connective tissue protein and all connective tissues in the patient’s body are affected to varying degrees.
The most striking feature of a patient with Marfan’s syndrome is the elongated limbs and long, thin fingers.
Phelps later wrote in his autobiography:
If you straighten your arms and compare them to the letter T, and your arm span is longer than your height, then you may have the disease. My numbers have been very close to the tipping point.
According to the medical community, if your arm span/height is over 1.05, you have a high probability of having the disease. Phelps’ ratio is 1.04, which is very close indeed.
Phelps goes on to write:
Fortunately, the physical examination proved that I was fine until now. I have to go to Johns Hopkins every year. Hopkins University and have Peter Roe, MD, see me. Dr. Peter Roe’s checkups show that my connective tissue is still strong, my aorta is still open and my heart is still good – as long as my beloved Baltimore Ravens keep winning games.
The Baltimore Ravens are Phelps’ favorite football team, but Phelps’ sense of humor doesn’t cover up the dangers of the disease. The most frightening aspect of Marfan’s syndrome is the effect on the heart and aorta, which, if severe, can potentially cause a ruptured aorta or a broken heart valve, and the consequences would be fatal.
There is no cure for Marfan’s syndrome, and patients must have frequent medical checkups and immediate surgery if there are any abnormalities. However, the disease, if not severe, can give patients an advantage over the norm in certain areas. For example, the legendary American blues guitarist Robert Johnson has Marfan’s syndrome. Johnson is a patient with Marfan’s syndrome, his fingers are particularly long, can play the tone of the normal people can not play, known as the “devil guitarist”.
It is not uncommon to see people suffering from this disease in sports. Tayshaun Prince, a defensive specialist on the U.S. men’s basketball “Dream 8” team at this year’s Olympics, is one of them, and Lang Ping, the patriarch of Chinese volleyball, was forced to retire early at the age of 25 because of suspicions of this disease. The first of these was the death of Lang Ping, who died of a ruptured aorta at the age of 32, while Lang Ping’s rival, the American women’s volleyball attacker Hyman, kept on playing.
So, did Phelps have Marfan’s syndrome or not? On the face of it, the suspicion is very high. In addition to a longer-than-height arm span, elongated bony canals, and abnormally flexible joints, people with Marfan’s syndrome often have language skills affected by underdeveloped upper and lower jaw bones. On the contrary, Phelps, who is known to dislike land, has relatively weak bones and joints, and is not very flexible in walking and running, and had a fall in 2007 that led to a fractured wrist bone. In addition, anyone who has heard him speak knows that he is afraid that his least good job is the announcer.
Marfan’s syndrome is a dominant genetic disorder, which means that it only takes one bad gene for a person to have the disease. Normally, the bad gene comes from the parents, and no one else in the Phelps family has the disease, which seems safe. However, the latest statistics show that at least 25% of patients with Marfan’s syndrome worldwide originate from an acquired genetic mutation, so the absence of a family history of the disease does not tell the story.
Phelps’ connective tissue is not detected in routine medical examinations, but the latest research proves that the disease can be “partially dominant,” meaning that the patient’s condition can vary to varying degrees. It is likely that Phelps only partially exhibits some of the characteristics of the disease, not enough to affect his life safety.
”There are five indicators that must be met in order to confirm a diagnosis of Marfan’s syndrome. Michael’s arm span and flexibility do have characteristics of Marfan’s syndrome, and his thoracic structure is suspect.” Ubanczyk told the publication, “Michael’s left chest is larger than his right, and his heart is much larger than normal, but that’s exactly what swimmers need most.”
Ubanchek admitted that the U.S. swim team has had several athletes with suspected Marfan’s syndrome. 1996 and 2000 Olympic men’s 400-meter medley champion Tom Dolan (Tom Dolan) even had a heart attack. Tom Dolan (Tom Dolan) even more than Phelps like Marfan’s syndrome patients; former world record holder, 2000 Olympic men’s 200m butterfly champion Tom? Tom Malchow was also suspected. Both of them, like Phelps, have extra-long arms and super-flexibility.
”I believe a mild form of Marfan’s syndrome is good for swimmers, and the disease gives them super flexibility, which is an innate condition that swimmers must have.” Ubanchek said.
Although Phelps has not been diagnosed with Marfan’s syndrome, one thing is for sure:Phelps was born different from others, and could even be said to have been born with some kind of disability. However, as the comic says, a blind man can practice shooting, a crooked neck can play the violin, some disabilities will show unique superiority in other aspects. Phelps’ talent makes him a fish out of water in the pool, so the U.S. swim team has more than one “fish”.
From Luo Shishin to Li Yuanba
In the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the 15-year-old Phelps only won 5th place in the 200m butterfly. A little over 6 months later, at a domestic swimming competition in the United States, the 16-year-old Phelps broke the world record in the 200m butterfly and the international swimming world was shocked.
To be honest, at this time Phelps is very much like the “Sui Tang Romance” in the silly boy Luo Shixin, empty of a strength, but unfortunately martial arts is not sophisticated, can only do “a fierce”, can not become “a hegemony”. Bowman knows this, he made a devil training plan for Phelps: wake up at 5 am every day, training twice a day, training 6 to 7 days a week, adding up to at least 80,000 meters a week! In order to let him focus on training, Bowman intentionally did not let him contact with society, forbidding him to participate in any party or business activities.
”My daily task was to eat, sleep and swim.” Phelps recalled that period of life, said.
Because of the high intensity of training, Phelps’ meals are surprisingly large. The media once made public his breakfast recipe, which was simply amazing: 3 fried egg and cheese sandwiches, plus tomatoes, grilled onions and mayonnaise, a 5-egg omelet, a bowl of corn crumbs, 3 slices of French toast, and finally 3 sweet cakes plus chocolate chip cookies!
Breakfast is so, the main meal is not necessary to say? Some people have calculated that Phelps has to consume 12,000 calories every day, which is 6 times more than a normal person.
It’s hard to imagine a real father would let his son live like that. “Frankly, my relationship with Michael is more complicated than you think.” Bowman said, “We’re a family and a business partnership at the same time, and we both often need to communicate on many different levels, and it’s very complicated.”
In his autobiography, Phelps once described his relationship with his coach this way:We often fought, sometimes to the point of being in a fight, but in a flash we would be talking and laughing again, just like a family.
”I knew him too well.” Bowman said, “I just have to look at his mood in the morning to know how he will swim in the afternoon.”
It was under the guidance of this strict teacher that Phelps’ performance soared, and by the 2004 Athens Olympics he had become a mainstay of the U.S. swim team, with the strength to compete with the then king, Australia’s “Torpedo” Thorpe.
In that year’s Olympics, Phelps tried to hit the record of 7 Olympic gold medals held by Spitz, although he finally got 6, which is a very good result, but one thing made him very unhappy – in the world’s most concerned about the 200m freestyle race, the three best swimmers in the swimming world together, Phelps not only lost to Phelps not only lost to the old generation of the King Thorpe, but also lost to the good middle generation, the Dutch Hogan Bender.
At that time, he was still a little short of the world’s best man, Li Yuanba.
After the Sydney Olympics, Coach Bowman accepted an invitation from the University of Michigan to be the head coach of the school’s swimming team. Phelps followed his mentor and left his hometown of Baltimore to become a student at the University of Michigan. In November 2004, Phelps was caught by police for driving under the influence and was sentenced to 18 months probation and fined $250 for pleading guilty. Phelps is very regretful and determined to change his ways.
This is his only “scandal” so far.
If the young Phelps because of the world is not deep, only know buried in training, after entering the university he finally understood the painful heart of coach Bowman. He took more initiative to accept training, determined to become the first person in the history of swimming.
At the same time, Bowman also changed his training plan and began to train Phelps on land strength. In addition to vigorously improving breaststroke technique, Bowman paid particular attention to training Phelps’ leg strength, a move that showed great power at this year’s Olympics. Phelps’ opponents can only maintain a distance of 6-7 meters after turning to stomp the wall, but Phelps was able to slide out 10 meters underwater with the help of a strong stomp. Underwater resistance is much smaller than the surface, so Phelps each turn will be faster than others. His absolute dominance in the 400m individual medley event, which requires seven touches of the wall, has a lot to do with improved turning technique.
When a gifted person outperforms his opponents in training intensity, swimming technique and psychological quality, the result is not hard to imagine. 2008 August 17, 11:11 am, Phelps together with his teammates won the Olympic gold medal in the 4×100m medley relay, breaking Spitz’s record of 7 gold.
The world of swimming has finally won the Phelps era.
Who can beat Phelps?
”Michael will try for 9 gold medals in 2012.” Ubanchek told the journalist, “but he will definitely change the project. We plan to have him swim the 100m and 200 freestyle, 100m and 200m butterfly, and 100m and 200m backstroke instead. Plus three relays, for a total of nine events.”
”Is he actually going to give up the medley? That’s his absolute strong point.” The reporter asked.
”That’s exactly why Michael thinks it’s no fun to win all the time.” Ubanchek replied, “He is a particularly competitive person, and if he always repeats the previous events, he will get bored.”
That was the case with Thorpe back in 2004. Thorpe was the world’s top freestyle swimmer at the time, but at the 2004 Olympics he tried individual medley and failed.
”Thorpe can only swim freestyle, while Michael is very good at everything except breaststroke, and that’s what he’s better at than Thorpe.” Ubanczyk said, “Breaststroke requires a special body structure, the opposite of the other 3 strokes.”
Swimming is indeed an event that requires high innate conditions, so since Phelps has a natural advantage over others, who else in this world can beat him?
”I think it must be his children who can surpass Michael in the future.” Ubanchek said with a smile, “Michael’s genes are so good that probably only those who inherited his genes can beat him.”
”But then again, genetic technology is developing so rapidly now that I think we’ll see the first ‘artificial world champion’ in another 20 or 30 years.” Ubanczyk said seriously, “like using some kind of genetic technology to create a person with big hands, or a person with superb cardio.”
The question is, if sports really developed to such an extent, would we still go to see it?
The emergence of “alien” Phelps makes us ask ourselves: what is the Olympic Games about?