Michael Phelps's coach Bob Bowman had him visualize winning races hundreds of times, including disasters like broken goggles. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Phelps's goggles filled with water during the 200-meter butterfly final. He swam blind with his eyes closed and won gold anyway, because he'd already practiced it.
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Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time. Yeah. He shares a fascinating story about his coach. Coach was Bob Bowman. Yeah. And when he was 12 years old, Bob gave Michael's mother a book on progressive relaxation and said to Michael's mother, I want you to teach Michael every night when he's slowing down in bed to visualize winning every single race. Yeah. And he would do that. And it got to a point where Michael would rehearse hundreds of times each race before he jumped in, but he'd also rehearse the probabilistic things that could go wrong because sports is competitive. And being a swimmer, he knew that his goggles could break. That was a big probabilistic potential. His suit could rip, he could get hit, whatever. So he'd also rehearse swimming blind. Now, what's fascinating from a neuroscience perspective is that our brain subconsciously doesn't know scientifically the difference between what's a dream and what's real. Mm-hmm. So he would rehearse like his goggles breaking too. And in the 2008 Beijing Olympic final butterfly 200 meters, I think it was, you probably know this. He dives in, 25 meters in, I think it is, his goggles break and fill with water. But because he's rehearsed it hundreds of times, he keeps his eyes closed and he carries on swimming. He turns perfectly and he ends up winning and winning gold, setting a new world record and personal best from mental rehearsal and visualization.
