Swimming: What happened when Olympian Srihari Nataraj tried Michael Phelps' 10,000 calorie diet?
The swimmer is targeting to shed another 0.3s from his timing in Tokyo
The legendary Michael Phelps grabbed headlines when he once revealed that while preparing for the Beijing 2008 Olympics, he used to have 10,000 calories a day.
For breakfast, he would have three fried egg sandwiches, with cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, fried onions, and mayonnaise, followed by three chocolate-chip pancakes. The list goes on with a five-egg omelette, three sugar-coated slices of French toast, a bowl of grits, and two cups of coffee.
For lunch, he would have half-kilogram of pasta, two large ham and cheese sandwiches on white bread smothered with mayonnaise, and another set of energy drinks.
Whereas for dinner, he would have a pound of pasta with carbonara sauce, a large pizza, and energy drinks.
After breaking Mark Spitz's record of seven golds at a single Olympic edition (Montreal 1972) with his haul of eight in Beijing, he would go on to say, "Eat, sleep and swim, that's all I can do."
Srihari Nataraj, one of only two Indian swimmers to have qualified for the Olympics through an A qualification mark, also tried to follow in his footsteps back in 2016. However, despite all the hogging, the youngster could manage to eat 8000 calories. His diet was almost identical to Phelps' as he would also have huge quantities of pasta, pancakes, pizzas, energy drinks, and what not. He carried on for a month and then he had to stop. Why?
"Simply because I was not training as much as him. So I found no point in just following his diet," he revealed to Olympics.com.
But in the run-up to the Olympics, by his own admission, he has been training like a madman. After qualifying for Tokyo 2020 with an 'A' qualifying mark in his last attempt at the Sette Colli meet in Rome, the youngster has not taken his foot off the gas as he thinks he can further improve his timing.
"I just need to get faster. The target is to drop another 0.3 or 0.4 seconds from my time. I think that is achievable. That should help me make it to the semifinals," he commented.
He had been training under Nihar Ameen and had also spent a week in February with American sports scientist Genadijus Sokolovas, who was also an adviser to Michael Phelps. He had suggested to not overuse the arm to swim, but get the body into action to move faster.
"Trying to be more like a fish. Just gliding through the water and using the centre of the body to generate more force. Just like a fish does underwater," stated Nataraj closely echoing his Guru's advice who had spent a significant part of his life in understanding why fishes swim faster than humans.
Lately, he has been trying to use more of his body muscles rather than his arms and the trick has worked wonders. He has even changed his starting technique and now uses the Dolphin kick instead of the flutter kick.
He has left no stone unturned to make his maiden Olympics a memorable one.
When is Srihari Nataraj's Tokyo 2020 campaign starting?
Srihari Natraj will be in action in the heats of the men's 100m backstroke event on Sunday, July 25.