Humans are built for endurance, not speed. We're awful sprinters compared to every other animal. We try to run our races as if they were speed races, but they are not. They're endurance races. Even a marathon, the way it's run now, it's not an endurance contest.
I found ways to maintain my performance through working with professionals and doing things that other people weren't doing. Later in my career, I had a great physical therapist who kept me out on the track. We were doing innovative things like ice baths back in the early '80s when everyone else thought it was crazy.
From the age of seven, I basically started practicing my hand-eye and foot coordination, balance, strength, endurance, discipline, and mental toughness three days a week until I was about 15.
I enjoyed practices at college. That is where you really get down and dirty and really get some development and see what you have.
I think I'm realising that careers for tennis players are very short. On the women's side now, players are starting to peak later on, but the average age is about 31, 32 when you finish playing, so I want to make the most of it while I'm young, fit, and healthy. I don't want to waste any time.
Those who can't do, teach. And those who can't teach, teach gym.
I've coached grassroots for eight years, I coached middle school, and I coached high school.
We never want anything bad to happen, especially to an athlete like Jon Jones.
When I broke my neck, I was told that I came within a millimeter of dying or being paralyzed from the neck down. When it happened, I was numb on one side. In spite of how serious they were telling me it was, I never took it seriously. I kept saying it's going to be OK, I trained too hard to get hurt. Which is silly.
I don't jog. It makes the ice jump right out of my glass.
I've been very fortunate with injuries: I've had the odd broken bone in my back; when I was starting out here in England, I cracked a few ribs, and I've broken a bone in my hand.
When I start training, I get very serious and focused about it. I probably train 4-5 days a week, and I eat probably eat 5-8 small meals a day to keep my metabolism going.
I've played with a lot of injuries.
First I was going to be a football player, then after that try to study medicine or engineering. But it was very difficult to do medicine, so I did engineering.
I know as a coach and a player we had three a day practices and that was physically taxing but at least we had food in our stomach and a good nights rest and plenty of cold water.
I want to play football at a high level.
I can throw a football all day and my arm doesn't get tired. If I throw a baseball more than a certain amount of time, it's going to get a little sore.
I do a lot of marathons as training runs. If I'm somewhere and there's a marathon, I'll sign up and just go run it.
Coaches who have been players in the league, they get so attuned to playing how they were successful and who their coaches were.
I'm an athlete; my dad had made sure I played all the same sports as boys growing up, so I was always super competitive.
I've played through a lot of injuries before, as a young kid through high school.
I work out a lot, but it changes day to day. I always start out with some cardio - either a jog, a bike ride, or footwork drills designed specifically for tennis movement. Then I do weights, but I switch the days: one day it's upper body, the next day it's lower body. Then I do stomach and back pretty much every day.
With wrestling, we're still athletes. I train like we're an athlete as opposed to a body builder. Some people still have that body-builder mentality. But not from me. I do a lot of agility work and stuff like that.
I was in the tennis bubble. I wasn't thinking about the big picture. I didn't notice what they said on television, I wasn't reading any papers. I had a coach and a manager, and they kept me in the bubble.
I remember when I was a kid rugby players were some big guys that drunk a lot of beer but now they have proper training programs and diets and all that. And the pioneers of all that is bodybuilding.
