Michael Phelps loves playing Call of Duty, but is he addicted to the game?

Associated Press photos

As U.S. Olympian swimmer Michael Phelps prepares to go for the gold again in the Summer Olympics in London, he sat down for an interview with ThePostGame a while back to give some insight on his life. While he talked about training and swimming, the subject of video games popped up since he has a Kinect game entitled Michael Phelps: Push the Limit.

Phelps said his game of choice lately is Call of Duty on the Xbox 360. "I find myself playing like 30 hours a week," he said in the interview. Apparently he's not to hot at the game. "I just get crushed. I always find myself getting heated, trash talking. And you know it's a 10-year-old kid on the other line that just demolished me. It's so frustrating. But it is fun, and I'm very competitive in everything I do," Phelps continued.

Yep, your American hero and role model for children all across the U.S. does a little trash talking online. Obviously, we don't know his Xbox Live gamertag, but since he apparently plays so much, some Call of Duty players may have gotten yelled at by the swimming guru.

Of course, the topic of video game addiction was brought up by none other than Liz Woolley, the founder of Online Gamers Anonymous, who warned that Phelps should put the controller down. Video game addiction isn't as deadly as drugs or alcohol, but it still can be a serious thing.

Are the warning signs there for Phelps? No way. He's probably exaggerating the 30-hour comment, and even if he wasn't, that's no where near addiction levels. An addict would be playing for more than 10 hours a day, and despite whatever amounts of free time Phelps has, he's got a long ways and a lot more trash talking to go. Unless he misses his scheduled time at the pool because he's playing some Xbox at the hotel - then we got a problem.

Get even tinier random thoughts at www.twitter.com/JeffHoard921.