Muhammad Ali Quotes

We'd always said boxers shouldn't lift weights. Now I realize some champion boxer started that rumor. I noticed if I did weights a couple of times a week, I would be able to hit that jab a lot longer. After sparring, everybody's gone, and I sneak into the weight room. Spend 40 minutes in there lifting weights.

I am basically turning football players into sprinters for a while. When we first talked about it, I didn't know how my expertise could be used.

The only way you can get match fitness is by playing games.

In games, you notice there's more sprints than in Bundesliga. It takes a while to get used to.

If you train with fast athletes, it keeps you pushing. I know that good preparation is more important than everything else.

It was very important for me to play winter ball. It was very important for me, my arm, and my whole body.

I'm now comfortable bowling long spells. Strength training has brought the pace up.

Once I'm in training camp, there's no beer, there's no soda, there's no bad food. There's no anything. It's eat, sleep and breathe training.

Well, Margaret Court was the first one, first professional woman - or maybe man - to actually take it into the gyms. She worked out on her body, she was very strong, very fast on the court.

I have butt muscles, thigh muscles, and then my upper body is super skinny - except for in my shoulders, which you need for a little bit of strength to hold other players off the ball. So I think I've developed muscles 100 per cent from just shooting the ball and running. Every single thing about my body looks like soccer.

Jumping isn't as important to my training as you might think; I'm only in the sandpit once a week. There's a high risk factor of injury doing it, so instead, I rely on my progress in the gym to judge how far I'll jump on the big day.

I wrestled at 165 pounds in college. I would actually cut from 205 pounds down to 165, and it wasn't really a big deal for me. With me wrestling all of the time, my body got used to it.

I've stayed sharp, basically through football workouts. I cater those workouts to track-specific things, so I don't lose the rhythm I've always had to keep football and track in balance.

The physique will show in the punches.

It is very easy to make athletes, and it is very difficult to make rugby players with that rugby instinct. I would like to think I have got a bit of rugby instinct and have become more of a rugby athlete along the way.

We train six days a week, and each day includes some type of running or strength workout. It's all about getting functionally stronger in the positions that matter for racing, which means balancing the strength between my quads and hamstrings.

I train with track athletes, which is weird for bobsledders. I love training with track athletes because they help me work on my speed, and they give me something to cheer for during the Summer Olympics.

When I play on grass, my body doesn't ache. It can get sore, but it doesn't pulse, and my legs don't ache. When I play on turf, my legs can pulse and ache for up to 24 hours, and it could take 3-5 days to recover, whereas grass, after 24 hours, I'm ready to play again.

I already have natural speed, which I don't need to work on, so in training I've been working more on my endurance.

I'm doing yoga, MMA and things like that. I'm an unorthodox player, so I have to do things that fit my kind of game.

I didn't know what it meant or what it took to be healthy and be prepared for 82-plus games... Injuries come with sports. I know that. But you can be prepared, get your body as prepared as it can be through practice and weights.

I will never close the door to the national team on anyone, but you also have to remember that in modern football, only players who are in peak physical condition can make the most of their technical abilities.

For the Olympics, I'm mostly training in the gym, so I'm running laps on the standard speed wall.

I practiced and played a certain way that kept my body limber. That's probably why I never got hurt.

I've been taught by some of the best strength and conditioning coaches in the country, and I've learnt that technique for weight training and cycling is very much more strength and less conditioning.