Why pain and disorder led to an iron will to win

The most successful Olympian ever reveals how he dealt with a childhood shaped by ADHD and explains how his body is built to collect medals
Michael Phelps
Michael Phelps suffered from ADHD as a child but recovered to win countless gold medals at the Olympics. Photograph: Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images

As a very little boy, I was not just always on the go; I simply could not sit still. I would twirl pens and pencils between my ﬁngers. I made faces at cameras. I climbed on ­everything. I never shut up. I had a question for ­everything, and wouldn't stop asking questions until I got the answer. If then.

Early in my elementary school years, my mom kept getting phone calls about what was routinely described as my ­"negative" behaviour.

"Michael is not paying attention in class."

"Michael is having difﬁculty focusing in class."

"Michael is not doing his work the way he needs to be doing his work."

"Michael is agitating other children in the class."

Finally, my mom and the teacher held a meeting.

"Michael just can't focus," the teacher said.

"Well," Mom said, "maybe it's because Michael is bored with what he's being taught."

"Mrs Phelps, are you saying that Michael is gifted? Michael is not gifted," the teacher said.


In the water I felt, for the first time, in control. Swimmers like to say they can "feel" the water. Even early on, I felt it. I didn't have to fight the water. Instead, I could feel how I moved in it. How to be balanced. What might make me go faster or slower.

When I was in sixth grade, our family physician, Dr Charles Wax, diagnosed me with attention deﬁcit/hyperactivity ­disorder. ADHD is a relatively common childhood disorder; it can make it difﬁcult for a child to do well in school or behave at home. The doctor prescribed the ­stimulant Ritalin.

Initially, the Ritalin programme was three times a day during the school week: ­morning, lunchtime, dinner. I did not take Ritalin on weekends. Staying busy with sports, increasingly swimming, would burn off my energy. At school, the lunchtime dose meant I had to go to the school nurse's ofﬁce. If I didn't ­remember, the nurse would come call me out of my next class. For a kid who was already being picked on, this was another reason to stand out.

Mom did not tell me at ﬁrst what ­Ritalin was or what it was supposed to do. In class, I noticed I did seem less jumpy. For her part, my mother, raising three kids by herself, pursuing her own career goals, just worked harder to make sure I was, indeed, not only focusing in class but was doing my homework.

So many times, it seemed, I would do my homework and bring it to her for a review, and she'd say: "Michael, your handwriting is so small, I can't read this." She'd rip it up, then and there. Doing it until I learned to do it right was one of my mom's many important lessons.

As I got into middle school, another teacher told mom that I would never be successful at anything I did because I couldn't concentrate.

"So," my mom told this teacher right back, "what are you doing about it?"

At home, this was what she and I were doing about it: OK, my mom would say, what's your topic?

I'd say, the Louisiana Purchase, or ­whatever it was, and she would say, OK, give me four main facts about your topic that you want to say. I'd do that, and she'd say, great, now tell me about the ﬁrst of those four points.

And so on, until she had helped me work my way through the entire ­assignment. There was no slacking off just because it might be difﬁcult or because I didn't want to do it. I was expected to do the right thing.

Which is why, in seventh grade, I went to my mom and said I wanted to stop ­taking Ritalin. I viewed it as an ­unnecessary crutch. I was mentally tough enough to go without it, I was sure. OK, she said, let's try it. The doctor gradually weaned me off the medicine. The ﬁrst to be cut out was that lunchtime dose. In short order, the frequency of the other doses was reduced, then eliminated entirely.

This was big. And not just because I was off the medicine. I had proven to myself that I could set a goal and, through ­willpower and being mentally tough, not only meet that goal but beat it.

And so, if I dedicated myself to my goals, if I worked as hard as I could, I could accomplish anything.

Perfect physique to rule the pool

I was blessed with very large hands and feet. My feet are now size 14. My hands have been compared to dinner plates. Big hands and feet are one of the things coaches look for; they're tools that give a swimmer an excellent way to hold on to the water while swimming. The very best swimmers carry very few bubbles, very little air, when you look at their hands and feet under water; they're able to slide their hands in, and to position both hands and feet on the water, where they're the most effective. That's what "holding on to the water" means.

I have a long torso in relation to my legs. That helps me plane on top of the water like, well, a boat. My wingspan is longer than my height. I'm now 6ft 4in. My wingspan is three inches longer, 6ft 7in. A swimmer with long arms who takes longer strokes obviously ought to be able to take fewer strokes in a single lap; that can be a big advantage.

In a way, I'm both perfectly tall and short. My shoulders are wide but my waist is only 32 inches. I have the torso of someone 6ft 8in but the legs of someone more like 6ft exactly. In the water, that means lower drag.

I'm very flexible in my shoulders, elbows, knees, and ankles. That's big in swimming because what you want to be able to do is to exert a lot of force but do so fluidly. Also, flexibility gives you a range of motion by which you can hold the water more effectively. The flexibility in my ankles means I can whip my feet through the water as if they were fins.

I have a very high endurance capacity. Some of this is because I started swimming at seven, truly important in developing my heart and lung capacity.

At ages nine and 10, I was swimming 75 minutes per day four times a week, then 90 minutes per day five times a week. At age 11 and 12, I moved up to swimming every day of the week, each time for two and a half hours.

With all of that, what struck my coach Bob the most about me when we first started together was not anything physical. It was what was in my head. Then, as now, I was intensely competitive. Not just in the pool.

In anything. Who was going to be first into the front seat of the car? Who was going to pick out the first video at Blockbuster? Who was going to be first at the dinner table?

I also discovered I could be motivated not just by winning. By improving my strokes. Hitting split times. Setting records. Doing my best times. There were any number of things I could do to get better. Winning never gets old, but there was a way to win that showed I was getting better, and could get better still.

The thing that got me the most, and still does, was to take swimming away from me. North Baltimore Aquatic Club had a programme for perfect attendance at practice; if you made each practice, you got to wear a yellow cap that said, in blue letters, "100% Never Settle For Less". I was always wearing a yellow cap.

Copyright © 2008 by Michael Phelps. This is an edited extract from No Limits: The Will to Succeed by Michael Phelps, published by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, priced £12.99.