Listening to Mo this morning, I heard a caller actually try to convince Mo that Michael Phelps was taking a form of performance enhancer.

RIDICULOUS!

The  caller has a problem believing that Phelps could recover so quickly from race to race. He went so far as to call him "superhuman". His paraphrased ( and stupid) words, " there is no way that anyone can beat all those people by so much if their not taking something". Well idiot caller, have you heard of Mark Spitz, or Jessie Owens? These guys dominated in an era when there weren't steroids. Occasionally, the stars align, the clouds part, and the Heavens rain down a champion. Bull crap! The guy works his tail off everyday to become the best in the world. Let me try to explain why he "recovers" so quickly..

During the early stages of training, the workouts in the water are very heavy and exhausting. Phelps spends up to 4 hours a day in the pool. The training regiment will include high lap sets with little rest in between. Example, 10- 200 meter freestyle on 2:30 intervals. As the training continues, Phelps incorporates  weight training and cardio programs. His total training time a day will increase to about 8 hours a day at its' peak. As the big race approaches ( this case the big 8 races in China), Phelps will begin to tapper his training. Currently, his muscles are used to heavy amounts of training. To put this into perspective, imagine lifting 150lbs, 40 times a day to be able to lift 75lbs, 5 times for competition. Phelps will begin to tapper  about  one month before his competition. In the last week he is in full tapper mode. His workouts are mostly short sprints with cosiderable rest in between. Most likely he has suspended any wieghtlifting and is intaking mass amounts of carbohydrates to fuel his muscles. If the tapper was timed perfect, Michael Phelps' muscles are at the appex of performance. Like a well trained quarter horse mounted in the starting gate, Phelps is poised and ready to explode off the blocks and on his way to the record books.

To suggest that a swimmer needs signifigant time to " recover" is an indicator of how uninformed some people are. 8 hours of training a day, everyday, to swim 8 events is not " superhuman". It is however, super dedication to be the best.