So how the hell did Michael Phelps get so good at swimming?

So here’s the deal: I wasn’t paying attention the minute swimming became cool. I was under the impression it was just something people did, not unlike walking or beatboxing. Evidently, swimming is cool when it makes you the record holder for the most gold medals held by any Olympian. In retrospect, this makes sense. It doesn’t matter how stupid something is, if you’re the best at it, that something is a more credible activity. Example: on one particular block of late-night programming there was an interview with a woman who could propel ping pong balls from her vagina more than any other woman. At first I was skeptical, but I was soon won over because that Goddamn lady had skill.

Believe it or not, in my younger years I was in somewhat regular contact with the Phelps family. Michael Phelps first showed prowess as a swimmer on his third birthday. Little Phelps wanted a puppy more than anything in the world and on his birthday party his evil uncle (who we will call Senor Phelps) awakened the great swimming beast. Senor Phelps brought a puppy to the party for the purposes of drowning it in the family pool and breaking little Phelps’s heart. However, when the puppy was tossed into the pool, Phelps jumped into the pool and rescued the puppy with lightening speed despite never having actually swam before. Coincidentally, three-year old Phelps holds the record for the fastest time rescuing a puppy thrown into a family pool by a jackass of an uncle.

Phelps did not start swimming competitively in high school until his senior year. He tried many activities, including fencing, football, and debate but his success was limited in all of them because he refused to wear a shirt. After one soul crushing day that cost his school the victory in a Lincoln-Douglas debate because the judges had to look at his nipples, he was approached by the school’s swimming coach. After hearing Phelps’s plight, the coach informed him that swimming is an activity where actually wearing a shirt is weird. From that point on, Phelps made up his mind: he would be a swimmer.

As for his Olympic training regiment, I do not know. I do know one thing however: it involves lots of swimming. He is a clean athlete, though. With such unbridled success, rumors began to spread that Phelps was using performance-enhancing drugs. He was tested extensively and proved to the world that his talent is all natural.

He also has a dorsal fin. I am not a marine biologist, but I can assume this helps him swim faster.