?I Swore I Was Going to Drown?: Simone Biles Once Revealed Her High-Intensity Workout Routines During the Olympics

As every elite athlete would tell you, what you need to do to achieve great heights in a sport is to train voraciously. And when you are done training, you train a little more. Just ask the most decorated gymnast in World Championship history, Simone Biles.

Because to reach the level of dominance that Simone Biles has, in her relatively short career so far, is no simple task. At the Rio Olympics, the gymnastics star made history setting an American record for most gold medals in women’s gymnastics at a single Games.

Simone Biles and her training regimen for the 2016 Olympics

From the moment she turned to the senior discipline in 2013, Biles has raised the standard of what it means to be not only a top gymnast but a top athlete. She talked to Women?s Health in 2016 and revealed her rigorous training techniques and schedules.

?Last year we did cross-training. We swam twice a week?almost a mile!??she?claimed.??I swore I was going to drown. It was so hard, and then we would run. And the year before that, we would bike 10 miles outside once a week. If we didn’t bike, we would run a mile before practice, and as soon as we finished the mile, we’d have to go inside and do a beam routine.?

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The US Gymnastics Team held a 10-Olympic camp before flying off to Rio. Even before that, Biles would hit the gym for 6 hours a day, outside the time in physical therapy. And things changed little when she began preparing for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Biles went all out for Tokyo

When Simone Biles pulled out of multiple events at the Tokyo Olympics, it left the world reeling. One reason it was such a shock was that the gymnastics G.O.A.T. had talked at length about all the time she had been putting into the training.

She appeared on the Tonight Show in April 2021 and talked about her training schedule for Tokyo preparations.??I train seven hours a day, I do have Sundays off,??she?explained.??So, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday I train twice a day. And then Thursday and Saturday I train once a day.?

But despite the long hours spent practicing techniques, her mental health failed to be on par with her physical fitness. Biles was plagued by the ?twisties?, a phenomenon that caused her to lose spatial awareness when up in the air. Putting her well-being first, Biles withdrew from the competition.

Since then, the gymnastics legend has been on break. She is a prime example of how it?s not just the athlete’s body that needs an upkeep, but also their mental health.

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