What Makes Michael Phelps So Good – and how can you and I be better?

By Terry Laughlin

Over the next week swimming fans will have a once-in-four-years opportunity to watch the best swimmers in the world, swimming difficult events at incredible speeds and with efficiency most of us can only dream of. Watching them flow gracefully through races such as 200 Butterfly, 400 Individual Medley and 1500 Freestyle will leave many of us in awe. Including preliminaries, semifinals and finals, Michael Phelps could race as many as 18 times in the course of a week.

Everyday lap swimmers will be breathless just watching. But Phelps and other Olympians will make it look easy. Which will prompt many of us to wonder exactly how much of swimming fast, far and effortlessly is innate, and how much can be attributed to training. How did the remarkable athletes we’ll see on TV get to be as good as they are? And what, if anything, can “average” folks learn from them to become more accomplished at swimming?

Elite athletes share certain inherent physiological traits, including extraordinary “engines,” an instinct for moving efficiently and an ability to keep swimming fast long after a lesser athlete would collapse from exhaustion. The heart of an elite endurance athlete can pump 30 or more liters of blood per minute to their muscles large volumes of blood to their muscles, while the heart of an average adult pumps about 15 liters a minute. Elite athletes also consume far more oxygen at maximum exertion. And even as their superior aerobic system makes huge volumes of energy available, their great efficiency allows them to use less energy to swim at any given pace than would be the case for the average athlete.

What sets Michael Phelps above even those genetic geniuses is a unique endowment; he was born with a body that makes him a nearly perfect swimming machine. Not only is he 6 feet 4 inches with 195 lbs perfectly distributed on a classic swimmer’s build – broad shoulders and slim hips. His unusually long torso and short legs are perfect for impeccable balance and minimal resistance, while his wingspan of 6 feet 7 inches gives him unusually long levers for holding onto the water as he strokes.

And then there are his size 14 feet and hyperflexibility that gives him a range of motion that provides tremendous propulsive efficiency. Finally, he has demonstrated, virtually from his first laps at age 7, a preternatural relationship with the water. While “feel for the water” – a natural instinct for finding just the right positions in which to slink through the water and work with it effectively – cannot be measured, Phelps just has it. His one seeming deficit is in physical strength. He has never lifted weights and has scored as one of the weakest elite swimmers ever tested by physiologists at U.S. Swimming – which speaks volumes about the relative importance of movement economy vs. power.

Photo: Baltimore Sun


Photo: Steve Laughlin

So which parts of the equation are amenable to change through intelligent and diligent effort? I’ve sought the answer to that question since my teens and here’s what I’ve learned. While no amount of training can turn a person who is not gifted into an elite athlete, what most athletes are motivated toward is maximizing whatever happens to be their personal potential – becoming as good a swimmer as you’re capable of being. And consistent, intelligent practice will do as much or more for you as sheer effort.

In my youth, I realized I’d been given no particular athletic gifts – I was one of the last ones off the bench in every youth sport I played and generally brought up the rear in the short running and swimming races that kids stage for fun. Through intense dedication I managed to become an “okay” distance swimmer in college. But as an adult athlete I’ve improved steadily with age.

Since turning 50, I’ve won my age group most of the time in local and statewide open water events, and managed to place in the medals in distance events (one mile to 10K) in National Masters championships. I’m far more accomplished at age 53 than I was in my college, or when I began Masters swimming in my late 30s. By any measure I’m one of the best swimmers of my age on the planet. Yet, I’ve also learned that, no matter how diligently I train there’s virtually nothing I can do to completely close the gap with those who were national champions 30 years ago and are competing again in their 50s.

But the pictures that accompany this article illustrate clearly what a motivated athlete can do to improve their performance. As the “DaVinci ideal man” diagrams show I share no physical advantages with Phelps. Over the past year, I’ve trained consistently enough to shed 25 lbs (I still have 20 or so to go) and to achieve a level of fitness that few 50+ people match. But none of that training can change the proportions of limbs and torso, make me hyperflexible, or give me more than a very well tuned, yet still unremarkable, aerobic system.

The one aspect of swimming performance that is completely amenable to dedicated practice is shown in the pair of “swimming position” pictures below. Michael’s extended sidelying position is nearly perfect – few swimmers in the world could match it. But one thoroughly average 50+ Masters swimmer has, through mindful and consistent practice, managed to learn to put himself in positions just as sleek as the best swimmer in the world…at least in freestyle.

Michael

photo: Baltimore Sun

Terry

photo: Dennis O'Clair

So, if you weren’t fortunate enough to have been born with a great engine or a perfect swimmer’s body, take heart. If you find yourself inspired by watching the best swimmers in the world this week, take that inspiration to the pool, practice your Skating and UnderSwitches and Zipper drills and your focal points and stroke counting, as I have. You can learn to be sleeker, longer and more balanced in the water – and as you make progress, so will your swimming.