Alex Rodriguez Quotes

There's steps that I've taken already, and each week, talking with the sports psychologist on a routine basis and working with the different programs that we're going through. This is all stuff that you can say you're going to make a difference, but I'm putting it into action.

There are athletes out there trying to get every advantage they can, including things like muscle and low-fat percentages. I feel if I'm the better fighter, I'm the better fighter.

The more matches I play, the better I feel on the pitch.

Some players like to practise right up to the start of play. But for me, whatever warming up I did was only going to be followed by cooling down again.

As fighters we want to do the best we can, so we visualize what we want to happen.

I prepare myself in the summer to play 48 minutes. It's not a logical goal, but that's the way I prepare.

When your image improves, your performance improves.

To be a top-class athlete, you have to train hard, you have to eat right, you have to get enough rest. I feel the way golf is going nowadays, you have to treat yourself as an athlete.

Ninety percent of hockey is mental and the other half is physical.

One of the main techniques I used was focusing on the goal and visualising myself competing in the race before the race started.

I always save a few special outfits for the final rounds of a tournament, because they put me in a more positive mindset and I then make better decisions.

Athletes have to be confident and I am thinking like that.

I had come across a few sports psychologists, and I had no time for nearly all of them. I just don't think they work in a team environment.

I have always maintained that in basketball the importance of the mental to the physical is about four to one.

Half this game is 90 percent mental.

I used a lot of sports psychologists when I was younger... sometimes it helped, sometimes it didn't.

Now that sports science is more advanced, we know that there are so many off-pitch factors that can affect how good you can become. If people are telling you to sleep a certain number of hours, eat specific foods, and drink a certain volume of fluids, then you have to be prepared to listen and learn.

Most of my best games were when I felt crap - I could hardly move on the morning of the World Cup semi-final in 1990 - but there's a thing called adrenaline that gets you through.

When you're doing any event on an elite level, you're in tune with your body.

Sports psychology or mental training has been viewed as a weakness, and I think that's a pretty silly way to look at it.

As I get better competition, I guarantee that more finishes are gonna come, because I'll really get to use more of my skill, rather than me knowing that I'm so much better than the guy.

Psychology is a big part of sport that some people do not realise. But it is a skill you have to practice.

I think our sport evolves as the talent evolves and the mindset evolves.

Being a great physical athlete is wonderful, and you need it at this level to be able to train and prepare accordingly. But the closer it comes time to perform, the ratio switches. When you're in camp, it's 90 percent physical and 10 percent mental. But as you get to fight night, it's the opposite.

The same way you train yourself to be physically gifted player - whether you do weights, or running to get in shape or swimming - the mental side is the same way. You've got to train yourself to be ready for whatever.