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With athletes, it's never fully understood the level to which we push ourselves. Especially in an endurance sport.

I think one has to understand that there are stages in life, and that the life of an athlete has its limits. It's short, and then it stops, and sooner or later you have to accept that.

Being an athlete, you know how to train and prepare your body for a performance and you're able to do it under pressure.

You must respect people and work hard to be in shape. And I used to train very hard. When the others players went to the beach after training, I was there kicking the ball.

To combat the monotony of gym workouts, I started playing soccer. I looked at workouts as training sessions. My soccer training includes squats, pushups, resistance-band work, and sprints. Ninety minutes of running became part of my love of the game rather than a chore.

At least for soccer players, it comes down to a blend of two types of fitness - your base endurance, which comes from longer distance running, and your speed, which comes from sprint-based workouts.

I explain to athletes, you're supposed to be a well-oiled machine. You're supposed to be in better shape than the people watching you. You're supposed to be an unbelievable specimen of a human being. You have to treat your body different while you're performing.

Athletes can be a very stressy bunch. We like routine. I'm a very routined person. If something changes, I really don't like it.

In my opinion, the power of the mind in sport is vital. If you can overpower those physical risks mentally, you can get your body round it physically. I've made my body do things because of my mind that it shouldn't have been able to do.

When I was in college, I learned to really take care of my body and figured out what works best for me and what doesn't work for me when it comes to my nutrition. That helped so much on the field because soccer is such a fitness-oriented game.