Gelsey Kirkland Quotes

I've been unfortunate enough to be working, and recovering from a few injuries now and again.

A dancer's life is hard - it is so physically demanding, and at any moment, you could have an injury that could end your career.

You have injuries that bother you when you're not playing. When that horn blows, you don't feel it.

As a former football player who has carried a football more than 4,000 times, trust me, I did not go into ballroom dancing with my body being 100 percent, with no aches or pains or ailments coming with me. When you're dancing, you're doing stuff that your body's not used to, and so you start to aggravate those old injuries.

Dancers use their bodies in extraordinary ways, so we are chronically pre-arthritic, because of how we use our muscles and our bones.

I wish there was a season where I was playing and didn't have no aches, no pains, no bruises, no nothing.

It's one thing to play through injuries, quite another to play well through injuries.

It's tough to play well - or not that well - when you're injured.

It's tough to play with an injury.

Football players have always got a problem, some pain, and in some games, I have had small problems with my knee or some pain, and I played anyway, but people don't know if I have a problem or not. People just know if you score a goal or if you play badly, but they never know if you are well or not.

I've had calf problems for many years, and it has been very difficult for me because I've played out of position, which means more sprints. Ten minutes into the game, I've not been able to feel my feet in a few games. I didn't like to go to the media and say, 'I am injured.'

The orthopaedic surgeon said that if ever I had hip or groin pain, I should rest until the pain went. However, resting is not part of a dancer's life - so I just danced through the pain.

That's probably the biggest difference from a hamstring to different injuries. You can play through pain with other injuries. But as I found out quickly with a hamstring, if you're feeling any pain, eventually, it's not going to work.

You're going to hurt, yes. You're going to have tweaks and problems. But you're a football player; you can play through those.

Dancing is hard on all bodies, but I particularly kept getting injured.

Truth is, none of us professional athletes are ever 100 percent healthy. We just decide what we're going to tape up and push through without making it worse.

Sport is healthy, but it can be the opposite of that at the top level. You have so many injuries; you put your body through so much. You wake up at 2 in the morning, and you cannot move.

It's not like I'm not constantly dealing with a litany of injuries that I have myself. If it's not one thing, it's another thing, but I've just been able to keep rolling.

It's literally I'll be injured or hurt in some facet and I'll go work out to heal it, to make it get better so I can hold that tolerance level.

Everything is not beautiful at the ballet. It's tough.

A lot of my career I'm out of the gym, I'm injured and I'm blown up.

I would go into practice pushing the body despite any injuries. It's a good thing but a bad thing. It's good because your body is quick to adapt, but it's a bad thing because you are forcing your body, and it can't recover as well.

I have been fortunate in my career to play a lot of lead roles. The downside to that is I don't have a life outside of the show. I go on lockdown even with my wife if the show is really difficult and I am having vocal problems.

All players go through injuries in their career, but I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

By 2012, I probably had, like, three stress reactions in my back. Two stress fractures in my fibula.