Holly Holm Quotes

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.

My concentration level blocks out everything. Concentration is why some athletes are better than others. You develop that concentration in training and concentrate in a meet.

During my first Olympics in 1980, at the age of 23, I was physically in great condition but mentally too inexperienced to cope comfortably in the pressure cooker of an Olympic year.

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 I'm practising on my own, my game feels great, but there's a big difference between practising on your own and playing against people.

You grow up always thinking you'd be in pressure situations all the time, and that's why I put pressure on myself in practice, so when those situations come in the game I feel I can be successful.

Ring rust is real. I've experienced it myself.

High jump is such a mental thing. It's you against the bar. It's something that a lot of people struggle with, and people experience slumps and plateaus because of it.

At a track, it's different, there's pressure, things like this, so to be yourself is a bit different.

There's always a little bit of anticipation - some people call it nerves - the night before, and although I always slept pretty well before big matches, you want to be on edge a little bit to get the best out of yourself.

I clear my mind; I don't think about the pressure before a fight. I focus on going in the cage and being successful while doing my job.

I'm a guy who likes to have fun, and I like everything normal people like, but I am always quoted before the fight when I'm jet-lagged and focused. In everyday life, I am different.

I train and prepare for every contest the same so I can compete to the best of my abilities.

When I do get in the game, just getting me going. How do you get me going? If that's running plays or things where I can impact and get going. But once I'm in the flow, I'm in the flow. It's hard to get me out of that.

I work better under pressure. I was the local badminton champion when I was a kid, and there was another girl who used to thrash me for the five days leading up to the tournament and then I would just nail her to the floor in the competition.

I don't believe in ring rust. I used to believe in ring rust, but I talked to my buddy Dominic Cruz, who's a bantamweight, and he basically said it's a mindset. What you do in between in your time off determines how you're going to look when you come in there.

I can only control what I do when I go compete.

Learning how to compete is one of the most important things that an athlete can do. You can train as well as you possibly can and go compete and completely choke.

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.

Everyone works so hard on their game and on their body. Most of the time, it comes down to who is more relaxed mentally; on the court while playing and off the court.

From the very beginning, every time I trained for a fight, I didn't train to beat the guy I was fighting. I trained to beat Anderson Silva.

A bit of nervousness is essential as in a way it helps you deliver your best.

One of the biggest things I've worked on is how to play my best tennis every single time I walk on to the court.

Sometimes self-esteem affects you on and off the pitch. Until you face your next game and you miss an easy chance, for example, then you feel not as great.