Micah Richards Quotes

I've had one very bad ankle injury but otherwise I've been incredibly lucky with my fitness. I've worked hard at it and I've always been fit even compared to other players. That sustains you through various parts of your career, but I am 36.

I retired from rugby because I was old and getting really slow.

I remember being 32 years old and feeling great, better than ever physically. Then at 33, I tore my shoulder and was out for eight months, and it was like I fell off a cliff. I was never the same.

I've played everything - baseball, football, basketball. I can still swim a mile a day. That's why I can't walk.

After I hurt the knee, football wasn't nearly as much fun. I was limited. But you make do with what you have. I adjusted some. I was lucky to play as long as I did, with the different kinds of injuries I got. I played with two severed hamstring muscles in my leg late in my career. I could barely run, other than to drop back to pass.

I am 26 and, and I don't recover as fast as I have in the past.

Golfers who play a lot of courses often encounter short ledges or retaining walls, and I always had fun hopping down from them. I could jump off something six feet high and land like a cat, no problem. Well, today I can't jump off anything higher than two feet without it just killing me.

I understand that when a player reaches his mid-thirties, and has a few injuries, people start to question how long he can last.

When I announced my retirement, that was actually when I was trying to come back and I realized, it just wasn't viable. It passed me by. My shoulder is done. I brush my teeth with my left hand now. That's just the way it goes. I can't shoot a basketball, I can't throw any kind of ball. I was right handed.

I'm not a real smart guy. But I've got enough brains to realize that when I'm 60 years old and play a sport, that it's downhill.

Never admit that your back goes out more than you do

It might have been easier to retire, to say my knee couldn't handle it and let that be that. At the same time, the prospect of not being able to compete in gymnastics anymore was heartbreaking.

Obviously, matches and all that stuff takes its toll on your body and so forth. But as you get sort of a bit older, a bit wiser, and a bit more experienced, you know also how to handle it.

I had aches and pains when I played. No player is ever 100 percent, 80 percent, 85 percent. Guys that play 158 or 162 or 145, we are all in the same boat.

If you see in sports at a super high level, people get hurt or have injuries when there isn't that pleasure, the true pleasure of the sport, when they're tired or demoralized or they're not quite focused.

It's rare enough as an older generation player that you're 100% fit - there's always something niggling.

When it came to football there was a certain age where I realized that my future in football was being a grease spot on the side of some bigger player.

Once in a while, when I'm out on the lawn, I'll jump around and do a couple of things. Here's a secret: The older you get, the more difficult it gets. The smallest little injury stays with you for so long. But that's how it goes, and it doesn't stop me. I'm always ready to do something that hurts a little!

I don't know how many years I can still play. I have to listen to my body and see how it feels.

I've been running a full marathon every year for more than 20 years, and my record is getting worse. Getting older, getting worse. It's natural.

There are a lot of great athletes who stop working out, and they get out of shape like everybody else in their 30s and 40s.

You can't go out to the mound hobbling and take a pitcher out with a cane.

I can't even touch my toes!

I can't play guitar if I blow my arm out.

When you have an injury, you are hindered a little bit.