Michael Phelps and Grant Hackett — Two Legends on Competing and Much More | The Tim Ferriss Show

Tim Ferriss interviews close friends and former swimming rivals Michael Phelps and Grant Hackett together. They open by dissecting their toughest races, the obsessive training and number-tracking that made them great, and the recovery routines required to sustain years of brutal volume. The conversation then turns deeply personal, with both men describing their darkest moments with depression, anxiety, and self-harm, and how vulnerability, therapy, and supportive partners helped them. They close with reflections on books, simplifying life, and their model of male friendship and mutual support.

• Grant Hackett won the 2004 Athens 1500m freestyle gold with a partially collapsed lung, calling it the most painful moment of his career.
  00:09:30
• Ian Thorpe said it was unlikely Phelps would win eight golds in 2008; Phelps taped the words to his locker as motivation.
  00:41:09
• Phelps describes a 2018 incident where he hit himself in the head with golf shoes, a turning point in recognizing his need for help.
  00:51:59
• Phelps reveals that the night of his 2014 second DUI he was relieved he had only two Ambien left, fearing what could have happened with more.
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• Hackett describes a 2017 public divorce and being isolated in a hotel with two security guards, texting Phelps 'I'm just scared' amid over a thousand messages.
  01:02:51
• Phelps says the swimming community has lost too many family members to suicide over the prior five years, a driving force behind his mental-health advocacy.
  01:23:55
• Phelps jokes he only learned how to communicate at age 30 after a career of compartmentalizing everything.
  01:21:21
• During his 2017 crisis, Hackett basically lived with Phelps, who drove him to therapy and supported him through late-night talks.
  01:53:21

• Hackett's total lung capacity is 12.63 liters, roughly 160% above what is expected for his age, with a heart also far above normal.
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• Both trained 30 to 40 hours a week, 5 to 7 hours a day; Phelps trained 7 days a week for years straight.
  00:26:37
• Phelps slept 8 to 10 hours a night plus a 2-hour nap and ate 8,000 to 10,000 calories a day during training.
  00:33:53
• Phelps had one PT/strength conditioning specialist do his massages, stretching, Graston, and cupping for 15 years.
  00:33:22
• Phelps references LeBron James spending about a million dollars a year on recovery as something that makes complete sense to him.
  00:34:55
• Hackett claims criticizing Phelps boosts his performance by about 400%, a theory he repeatedly tests on the golf course.
  00:23:28
• Phelps has logged his blood work, sleep, and lactate numbers for the last 15 to 20 years of his career.
  00:35:11
• Swimmers train for loose, flexible ankles, using a wood panel with a strap, the opposite of sports like tennis.
  00:39:37
• Phelps uses Talkspace for therapy and Hackett sends his therapist bullet-point notes in advance of sessions.
  01:17:46
• Phelps broke the 200m butterfly world record at age 16 with a 1:54.
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