Tom Mitchell

Good, Belly. Thanks for having me on.

You're going to say that as soon as, as soon as I saw you there, I'm like, "He's going to say something about the sunnies." Yeah, I love the sunnies.

W. I've let go of the reins of, um, had a bit of an average haircut for a while and I thought it's time to just let go and go with a shaved head.

No, no, he did it at, uh, Plucky Hair Transplant, Melbourne.

It looks great. To show him some pictures. M. It's literally 15 days after the hair's coming through. It looks amazing.

Because Turkey is apparently the place to go. I've had a few teammates mention, get rid of Turkey in the off season. Yeah. So maybe I should do a trip to Mick, get to Turkey and sort the hair out.

Good. Yeah, I've had a foot injury that's sort of kept me out for a fair while. Missed all of, well, most of last season with that. Yeah. And most of the preseason with that. I got some good training in. But and yeah, I was just getting close to playing again and just had a little setback on my right ankle, so my other ankle, which isn't anything to be concerned about. So I'm getting pretty close.

Well, it'd be hard to name the number of injuries. The biggest injury would definitely be when I broke my leg in 2019. I snapped my tibia-fibula.

I did it at training. So it was the first session back for 2019. Yeah, come off pretty good season in 2018, which was, you know, some of my best football, I think that I've played. First session of 2019 at training, just a big collision in a handball game. And looked down, my leg was in some pretty ordinary shape. It was sort of in half.

Yeah, in half facing the wrong way, dangling. And I remember the reaction of everyone just sort of fleeing the scene. The physio got to me, his first reaction was, "Oh, *[expletive]*." So I was, "Oh, this isn't good." And then straight to hospital, surgery that night. So I was out for a fair period after that.

Yeah, probably, but I think there's also an element of luck. I think some of those collision-based injuries is, if you put yourself in that situation, are hard to avoid. I think some players are probably pretty smart and they know how to potentially maneuver around those situations. But some are completely hard to avoid. So I think collision-based injuries I think are unavoidable. But in terms of injuries such as soft tissues and other issues like that, I think, you know, guys are more injury-prone than others. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Wow.

Uh, no, two two in the left, two in the right. And seven arthroscopes. Wow, mate, it's just it as you know, injuries are just the worst.

They are. They, they're debilitating. And surgeries as much as you can avoid them, you want to avoid them because, you know, things off the back of surgeries that it be scar tissue or yeah, the next injury off the back of that, you know, my learning is B, avoid surgery as much as you can.

Yeah, I think every recovery is a little bit different depending on what you've done. I think there's a holistic approach, which I listened to you pod with Harry Szewczyk, what a gun is, is a weapon, pretty impressive to hear those things from such a young guy. He is. So I think there's a holistic approach, which I naturally do and live every day. And sounds like you're pretty big on that as so we can talk a little bit about that. And then I think there's things specific to the actual injury. So I can probably talk about my most recent injury that.

Um, I guess from a holistic point of view, the basics of diet, sleep, routine.

So it's transformed, I would say. I, I live by the, I just live by the basics, basically. I generally know what's good and bad. I think most people do. And from there, I've probably channeled it and refined it even further. I saw a clip on you the other day talking about fasting. So on my low training days now, fast till midday.

Yeah.

Yeah, probably, probably have two low training days a week. So on those days. And then I guess on my training days, it'll be, I'll get up, make an omelet, um, and have a bit banana. Um, lunch normally like a chicken salad or something like that. And then dinner varies. I eat a fair bit of fish, salmon. Um, I've got a contact in the lamb industry actually, as well. So he sends me over quite a bit of lamb, lean meat. Lamb backstraps and things. So...

Okay. Yeah, lean meat. Very healthy. A little bit harder to get.

Kangaroo, amazing as well. Yeah. So I sort of live by the basics. And then normally say if we have a game on a Saturday, Sunday will be a day where I just sort of let myself eat whatever I want. And then Monday to game day, lock in again, keep myself sane. So that's probably what I do with diet. Uh, there is more specifics to that, but it's, you know, how deep down the rabbit hole do you want to go?

Yeah, we have to be aware of what we take. So things need to be batch tested, approved by WADA. So if you take something that is banned by WADA and you get tested, that's how you get a ban. Two to four years it can be. I take fish oil and I take collagen. Yeah, um, they're probably the main two I take. I've taken a few things in recent time from our dietitian for joint health. Um, but yeah, they're the two main stays.

Mhm.

Cod liver oil.

Yeah, yeah. Obviously do some blood work. Yeah, you need to give it a decent sample size, don't you? To feel the benefit. You can't sort of try something for a week and be like, "I'm not feeling it." I assume that's what you're doing is giving it a good sample size and then comparing to how you wear prior.

Yeah, correct.

Yeah, so back to the holistic thing. I guess the, the diet, sleep, the routine. With sleep, like I probably even on training days as well, I'll schedule a nap between 1 and 3 for no longer than 45 minutes.

Definitely. I feel recharged to go again for next training block.

Really? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I try and get in the ocean as much as I can as well. Yeah, nice. I'm big on grounding. Like that's a bit of a different one. But every time I walk with the dog, I'll never take my phone with me. Sort of my time to get in nature. And I'll always take my shoes off, walk just in grass. That sounds a bit funny. There are proven benefits with it. I sort of try and find a little 1% just in everything I do. I guess when I wake up, first thing in the morning, what I always did previously was go straight on my phone. Now I do my meditation. It's the first thing I do. My 10 minutes in the morning. And then I avoid my phone as long as I can. So I'll get ready.

I've been using the Calm app recently. There's a new 10 minute, which works well for me at the moment. 10 minute. Um, man, her name is Tamara. Love it. Um, she yeah, posts a new 10 minute meditation on a new topic every morning. So I'm doing more guided meditation at the moment. And I've just created the routine. Um, I said once I got reinjured with my foot, I had a stress injury, what can I do during this time to find an edge somewhere else? I'm like, I'm going to do something in the mental space. So I haven't missed a day since pretty much December one. Well, yeah, I said I was going to meditate every morning. And then now I wake up, I've got an Oura Ring. First thing I do is check my stats. I'm like, this is actually the worst thing you can do because if your stats aren't perfect, you start get in anxiety and start stressing out about it. But I should be doing is actually doing meditation, doing some breath work, yeah, and then starting my day. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, depending on if it's a training day. So if it's a big training day, I'll have breakfast, which is normally an omelet or I'll have muesli and berries. And then yeah, I journal a lot.

Every night, my journal sits next to my bed. I do that every night before bed. The next thing I want to integrate, I need to be get better at reading. And it because it does help sleep. But just learning and things like that. So I've just finished a book, my first book for a little while, but of a CEO by Steve. Like he's got some really good podcasts as well. Great podcast. Yeah, he get some of the best guests from yourself. Obviously.

Yeah, I know I journal, but I probably should.

Yeah, so that's been something I've been doing for at least a couple years. And um, yeah, I wouldn't miss a night on that. I'll take it with me every away trip, everywhere I go. So yeah, there's some things I do. And what I write in the journal, it's, you know, gratitude is a big one that's spoken about. So the three things I'm grateful for. I'll reflect on, like you say, plan the next day. So I know what I'm doing. So don't sort of thinking something that's pretty unique that I do as well is I give myself a score for mood, diet, and sleep out of 10 every day. And it's just something I track.

So today I had a great diet. So I'll give myself a nine out of 10.

Yeah, but it's, it's more if, if there's a pattern with any either of those that are trending in the wrong direction, that it's something I'll just take a look at. Just to be like, "Okay, if it's sleep for example, like that, if that's going down, okay, what could that possibly be? Is there something I can address?" Whether it be with our club physio or in what I'm doing, if I've got stress in my life or something that I can go back and see if it correlates. It's different. I, I, I just created that myself. It's something I've just done. Yeah.

I would say pretty consistent. Yeah. Pretty consistent. And I guess it's been a tough period to be honest, because I've been injured for almost 12 months. And I've dedicated so much hard work, especially this last six months, to do everything right. Not leave any stone unturned. And I'm not getting the benefit of the result. And I know that that has to come soon because I'm, I'm literally doing everything I possibly can. But yeah, it's been a challenging period because you're doing all these things and it just doesn't make sense. But just a reminder, I got to stay on top of the things I can control. And hopefully the outcome.

I think if it was a one-off event, that would be the approach. But this is, this patch has really tested my resilience. Last year, I had, I've had, I'm trying to think the amount of setbacks. So I had appendicitis last year. And then yeah, like my appendix, went to hospital. I was like, "I wanted to get back to play." I was like, "I'm just going to take the medication anyway." Then my appendix almost exploded. So I had surgery for that. *[expletive]*. Then I had the plantar fasciitis. My foot couldn't get on top of that. So I got the surgery, did all that. Come back feeling fit, leanest, fittest I've ever been. Then I got a stress fracture in my foot. I'm like, "*[expletive]*, how long, how many more setbacks can I do?"

Off the back of the plantar fasciitis, you're sort of slightly more at risk to get...

Something off the back of that. Back to our chat about avoiding surgeries, if you can. But I was, I couldn't do anything for probably close to six months. I just couldn't get going. So I'm like, I need to do something. And the team was looking last year, like making finals. Didn't end up making it. But I was like, "That's what you want to be a part of." So I sort of had to make the call. Yeah. Um, and then yeah, I've just had this right ankle flare up. So it's sort of rather, I described it to someone like, when I broke my leg, I knew I was going to be out for, let's just say it was 12 months. I knew the rehab. I need to do that's the timeline. Okay. That's the end goal. That's where I'm going to get back to play. This has sort of been one thing after the other. You know, it's just like, yeah, especially when it's your career. Yeah. And this is your livelihood. Being injured is must feel debilitating at…

It's tough when you dedicate so much. Like people wouldn't even know the amount of time. I guess like with yourself in business and things, how much time you really dedicate when it's your profession and what you love. It's not just what's seen at the club on training days. It's the thousands of hours of unseen work that, yeah, when you don't get rewarded for that and you're putting in countless hours, you're just like, "Feel helpless."

Yeah. So big on the **sauna**. I feel like they've gone a bit crazy the last little while. Saunas. Saunas and ice baths. I've just, um, got one for my home with Realm Saunas. So that it's arriving in, yeah.

To be honest, I personally don't find the benefit. I don't feel the benefit. I don't feel any different.

Yeah.

Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. So the science is there, the research is there. But yeah, you feel different? I haven't used one consistently yet because you need to use it consistently for 30 plus days to get the...

Every day. Yeah, haven't done that. Yeah. But it is good in those hyperbarics because you can, I assume for you as well, you can listen to a podcast, you can read, you can write, you can do whatever you want in there. So it's almost a quiet time space. So you can do it. Why wouldn't you do it?

So I do **DNS training**, which is dynamic neuromuscular stability. So with a guy named Mark McGrath. So when I was at Hawthorn, Mark was working there and he's worked with some world-class athletes. Cadel Evans. But what really got my attention was that Mark was, and you'll hear Chris Judd talk about him, obviously everyone knows who Chris Judd is, one of the goats. When Judd came from West Coast to Carlton, couldn't get his body right again, wanted to avoid the surgery route. Mark actually fixed him and his groins to get back to play. And then when I got to Hawthorn, Luke Hodge worked with Mark every day. I'm like, there's something this guy's doing something.

It's, it's hard to, if you saw it from I guess an untrained eye, you would think it's yoga and body postures and things. But it's much more than that. It's, it goes back to the form of how a baby moves when it's first...

Yeah, it's a movement efficiency. And Paddy Cripps is really big into it now. A lot of the Carlton guys are into it with, uh, with Robbie, who's working at Carlton in the DNS space. So more and more AFL athletes are catching on to it. I know Novak Djokovic is huge on it. So you'd have to read about it. It's sort of hard to give a summary. DNS. It's what I do. I do it every day. But I see Mark once a week. And I have for the last...

Perfect for that. Yeah.

I haven't seen exactly what you're talking about, but I guess it's, it's all about equilibrium. And, you know, if you've got a sore knee for example, the issue isn't as much in the knee.

It's like, "Okay, where in the chain is something not working how it should?" It's a holistic view of the body. Um, rather than looking at a specific, you know, you've got a sore knee, let's fix, look at your knee. It's you'll look at your whole movement chain and where there's things that aren't working how they should and how that works. Spine. Yeah, everything.

And the posture work is tough. Like it's not not easy. Like and but there's also, you know, he'll correct you if you're one centimeter out with a foot position or a toe position or anything. He'll correct you and be like, "No, that's, it's very specific."

I do my own practice every day.

Varies each day depending on how much time I have. But I do minimum half an hour to an hour every day. You know...

You if you do it, you'll just move better. Just you enjoy, you'll enjoy walking. You'll love running. It's just you'll feel good. You feel good in your body. Okay. Great. Yeah.

Well, hopefully as soon as I can.

Not in the next week or two. I would say a month or two. Um, yeah, I'm sort of in a position now where I've missed this portion of footy where I'm like, "Okay, I'd rather tick every single box and come back to perform, not just to play." I don't want to come back and just be ready to play. Like I want to, if I have to throw an extra few weeks of training on so that I'm back to perform if that makes sense.

I think it's in the mind. The **mindset** that separates. Like I can see and say, Nick Daicos, coming to the club. Everyone looks at his footballing ability. But it's his attitude and his mindset and his willingness to go a step further than anyone else. Harry Sheezel seems like he's cut from the same cloth. You know, I don't think I was talented as either of those two, but I think my mindset to outwork...

Do you think **work ethic**?

Yeah, like I was pretty, I was pretty lucky. My dad played AFL. So I was probably pretty well educated on the game. Like I grew up in AFL footy clubs. At Carlton, like my dad was a coach when I was going through the ranks. I was always observing, watching. And I guess, yeah, natural, I've got a bit of natural intuition and you can read the game awareness and all those sorts of things as well, which whether that's innate or whether that was observation, I'm not sure. But that's probably been one of my strengths over my career.

Yeah, **work ethic** was I guess my dad was a player and he was renowned for being one of the hardest workers, one of the...

No pressure. But I always knew that I was what I wanted to do. So I was always watching him train, do more. Even when he was finished playing, my mom was the same. And so yeah, I guess even, I never really saw them much with a drink in their hand either. So I guess my upbringing was all about being an athlete, really. Like it was just the, that was the role models that I had. And I always loved having a ball in my hands from when I was two years old. Or as early as I could. And yeah, like I just love playing sport, different sports. Yeah, some of my best memories. And just love doing it. It didn't seem like a chore because I always wanted to do more, more, more. And in some ways it might have chopped myself in the foot because I have probably had a lot of injuries over my time. Whether I when I was younger or in my AFL career because I've probably always overshot and done push too hard. Pushed too hard. So it's been my biggest learning is to do less. It's harder to do less.

Yeah.

Everyone, there's a lot of people on zero out there. Yeah.

Yeah, that's cool.

When I was really young, I was a Crows supporter. I was Anthony Koutoufides.

Yeah. That's one of my earliest memories of footy. And then as I progressed, I was a Crows fan growing up. When you get closer to being drafted, you more look at players and guys you want to emulate or guys you admire. Gary Ablett Jr. was my favorite player. And I think he's the best player that's ever played. Ever. Ever.

Uh, for me, it'd have to be Wayne Carey. Yeah. He, he was incredible. Yeah, I guess you're biased towards your own era, aren't you? Like I missed that era footy with Gary Senior, Wayne Carey. I grew up in the Gary A, Chris Judd era. So you always is going to be, you know, yeah, whether you love him or hate him, he was an absolute unbelievable player.

Well, I see Nick Daicos training every day. I'd say Nick. Yeah. Daicos.

Yeah, no, good point. He was pretty freakish on the weekend. He can do things guys can't do. Um, W. Yeah. Nick could be the best ever when it's all said and done. But who, who knows? Let's wait and see. I think she's a chance down the track.

He is.

Yeah, so I have a business called **Ball Magnets** with Paddy Cripps and Lachie Neale.

And then Josh Giddey in the NBA. He's with Ball Magnets as well. So yeah, it's something we're really passionate about. We create training programs through our website for aspiring athletes. We try and make our programs more advanced rather than, you know, the monotonous basic skills. We try and take you into our minds with things around game awareness, the real specifics where we think people can get an edge because we think the the basic education's been done. Yeah, it's taking you to how the, I guess, the the best athletes are thinking to get their edge and what they're training and what they're looking at. So we do a podcast, a Ball Magnets podcast, training programs. Yeah, we do merchandise. It's just a bit of fun. But it's, it's more around the content.

So it's encouraged to do something outside of footy and there's so many options. So these days players are pretty well catered for. If you want to doing apprenticeship, if you want to get into finance, business, there's a course pretty much for every path you want to take. So it comes down to the individual driving that of what you want to do, which I think players can still get better at that. You know, I was guilty of it. I put all my eggs in the footy basket. Yeah. But broke my leg and I was like, "*[expletive]*, what do I do now?" So I've sort of found what I'm passionate about. And that's been great. This injury because I've had balance. Footy isn't going great. But I've got, you know, business on the side to keep building and something I really enjoy.

Well, the one that stands out is 2023. That's the most special day ever. Like you can't even describe the feeling of when the siren goes. It's genuine euphoria. I haven't felt anything like it. So that's the reason I'm playing still is to feel that again. I remember just being physically exhausted more than any other game in my life. Like literally emptying the tank right to the last second. That was the most physically tough game. It was hot that day. I remember being so sick after the game. Like you're trying to celebrate. You're so sick. Just trying to get water and different things.

Yeah, we did. Yeah.

But, um, oh, that's, that's the obvious one. That's what you play footy for.

Yeah, yeah, that was, uh, that was a special night too. It was a funny night actually, as well, because I remember as the count got towards the end, I was leading. And what they do between the test breaks is they close the doors if you go out to the toilet or whatever. And if you come back, the doors are closed. You can't go in.

Because well, you know, when you watch on TV, if you watch on TV, there's never normally people walking around. Everyone's sat at the table. They don't want people walking around for the optics of how that looks.

So it was getting close. Um, there might have been one round to go. I was getting nervous.

I was busting. I was like, well, I got to, you know, probably do a speech in about 10 minutes. And so I quickly went out, went to the toilet, went to come back in. The security guards, mate, "You're not coming back in." So good.

And then the guy wouldn't, wouldn't budge. Like, mate, "We're don't letting anyone in. Rules of rules." Like I kind of respect you doing your job. But then they rushed me to the table. All the cameras were there. I ran and I got there with maybe 30 seconds to spare when they're about to announce it. And I wouldn't have been at the table. So it was almost a missed, uh, yeah, I would have missed being announced. But, um, they got me through and got there. And then yeah, that night was pretty good night.

I know. Yeah, they they looked over like, "The chair is empty to the runner up." And then yeah, the night at, we spent the night at Crown and they actually, have you ever stayed at one of those Crystal Villas or been in one of those Crystal Villas?

So I'm not sure what that's worth a night. But they say that it's where all the tennis stars and celebs stay. So I felt like a celeb for a night.

Yeah, probably something like that. But they gave us one of them for the night, which was pretty cool. So he could feel special for a night and then back to reality the next day.

I think we've made a good start. I think it was a shaky first up game against the Giants that was well documented. But we responded the way we wanted to against Port with a really good win there. That was, you know, sort of our best footy. And then every game's close and tight. We had a tough close win against the Bulldogs who really came to play. But even if you look across the competition, like I noticed over the weekend, North upsets at Melbourne. Geelong upsets at GWS. Like there's no easy games. Every game's tough. If you're not on your A-game, you're going to get done. So it's just a reminder that you need to be ready to go every week. But I think two and one, it's a good start. But yeah, we just got to keep sticking to our processes and hopefully, yeah, push towards later in the year if we can do that.

Some good teams. Yeah.

Yeah. Brisbane, Bulldogs. I'll say. Can I give you four?

I don't know. Yeah. There's always going to be a team that shoots up as well. I think Brisbane and Giants have really proven themselves the last few years. And I think if you're always in contention consistently, just give yourself a chance. You're always around the top four. Mark Or, obviously, really gone to another level this year. Geelong always find a way. Adelaide have shot up. Like who knows? I don't know.

Oh, mate, 20 years in oblivion. Yeah. So we'll have our day in another 10 years from now. Zack Merrett's game is pretty special. That's one positive. Still be nice to win a Premiership again.

Uh, thanks, Belly. Cheers, man.