Olympic swimming star Michael Phelps says he is spending more time on out-of-the-pool training as he prepares for the 2012 London Games.
In an interview with USA TODAY, Phelps, 24, says that means more Olympic-style weightlifting exercises than he did before, more running and the addition of boxing exercises.
The 14-time Olympic gold medalist will have plenty of shirts, shorts and sneakers to choose from when he hits the gym: Phelps and Under Armour senior vice president Steve Battista told USA TODAY.
He has signed a multiyear deal to endorse Under Armour training apparel and footwear. In the water, Phelps will continue wearing swimsuits from sponsor Speedo.
"Over the last few years, I've started lifting more and more. ... More power cleans. More squatting. More free-weight squats," Phelps says. "I started running more recently. I'm also doing a couple of boxing exercises that work more on my core body strength but also (replicate) movements I would have in the pool."
The boxing exercises, he says, help him improve his form, tempo and muscle memory. "You have to really use your hips and your whole body to get everything into it," he says.
His goal is improvement in his core body strength. "Your core has to be so much stronger," he says. "The only way to really get that is trying different exercises and keeping things more interesting and more exciting. That's the only way you're going to get better."
Since the 1990s, most world-class swimmers have been increasing their dry-land training to improve their results in the pool, says Jaci VanHeest, the former director of exercise physiology for USA Swimming and now a professor at the University of Connecticut.
This kind of cross-training helps swimmers two ways, she says. It boosts their endurance and cardiovascular fitness. It also reduces their mental staleness and fatigue.
"They can continue to train without that black line moving underneath them," VanHeest says. "That's a pretty important thing for a swimmer. If you're a runner, you're outside and you see things around you. If you're a swimmer, you look down at a black line" on the bottom of the pool.
Phelps earns an estimated $10 million a year as an endorser. After he won eight gold medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Phelps got a $1 million bonus from Speedo. But after a photo of him smoking a marijuana pipe surfaced in a British newspaper in January 2009, he was suspended for three months by USA Swimming and split with sponsor Kellogg Co.
Phelps apologized for his "regrettable" behavior and "bad judgment." Speedo and other sponsors Subway, Visa, Omega watches and PureSport stood by him. In July, he netted a new deal to endorse H2O Audio waterproof headphones.
In Phelps' first national television commercial for Under Armour, which will appear next week, viewers will see a different side of the swimmer. He will be shown doing pull-ups at a gym and working out with a kettlebell and a pegboard. The tagline: "Protect This House. I Will."
Phelps says: "For me, my house is the pool. ... No one's really been able to see the behind-the-scenes things that I do to prepare myself to be the best that I can be."