0:00Introduction

Welcome to Give It A Nudge. Very special guest this week. I am very happy to have a good friend of mine Anthony Minichiello on the show. I have been trying to get him on for quite some time but he has been busy. Minnie welcome to the show finally. Yeah Steve thanks for having me mate it is good to see you.

2:3019 years at the Roosters

We are launching this in line with the new NRL season. You played for the Roosters for how many years? 19 years. I signed in 1996, I was 16, and I retired at 34 in 2014. I had a Liverpool Patrician brothers and I got signed by the Roosters at 16. I did not move to Sydney till 99. My first first grade game was the year 2000, I was 19. We made the Grand Final that year and obviously the Olympics were on so the season started a lot sooner. We played at Homebush with about 96,000 people there.

5:00Sport and entrepreneurship

Do you think having a professional sports career is conducive to going into entrepreneurship? I think it is a bit of a double-edged sword. You go into professional sport and you are judged weekly on your performance. Sometimes that does not even happen in business. At training you are reviewed by your coaching staff and then weekly by anyone watching. You learn to improve on a daily basis and take constructive criticism. That is a huge benefit when you are going into business. But on the other side a lot of things are already done for you. Your bag is sorted, everything is pristine in the change room, at the airport the cards are all filled in. When you retire some people struggle because they have relied on that and now they have to do their own diary. If you have a good strong routine and are always striving for something better, which most players do, you can transform that into something else.

8:00The farm upbringing and moving to Bondi

I grew up on a farm in Southwest Sydney outside of Prestons. Not farmland anymore but we had our own cows, chickens, eggs, fruit trees, veggie patches. Italian heritage so the whole culture is to grow your own and cook your own. Mum was a pretty good cook. We would eat what we were growing. I did not really understand the huge benefits of that until I studied it later and realised it built a strong foundation for me to play professional sport. I never got sick. We played so many different sports and never got injured. Then I moved out of home at 18 and lived everywhere around Bondi. And how was your diet during that period? Shocking. In the early 2000s there was a huge drinking culture in the game. After every game it was beers and if you were not out with the team, where the hell were you? We used to do it every weekend without fail. But the nutritionists told me I was one of the lucky ones. Lean naturally, good genes. When you are in your early 20s and told that you think you are bulletproof. I thought I could eat whatever I wanted and I would still be fine.

14:00Three spinal injuries in three years

I did not get a serious injury until 2006. I had been playing with a ruptured disc in my lower back. In 2006 I got selected to play for Australia in the Anzac Day test. The physio asked me to bend down and touch my toes. I was bending to my knees and there was sharp pain all the way down my left leg. He ruled me out and sent me to a specialist. I had a ruptured disc at L5 S1 and had an operation. I did not make it back that year. In 2007 I played 10 games and then literally rolling out of bed putting my socks on I heard a click and had severe nerve pain down the right leg. Second back operation. Then in 2008 I had a huge disc bulge in my neck on the bench press. Three spine injuries in three years. I had my whole spine imaged and every single disc was black. The verdict was I do not think you should play contact sport. A healthy disc should be white. They are your cushioning system. Mine were dehydrated. Multiple professionals said it was pretty hard to rehydrate one disc let alone all of them.

18:00Meeting Aaron McKenzie

I found Aaron McKenzie of Origin of Energy, a functional training studio that ties in a lot of nutrition and health and recovery into his programs. He did not ask me one question about my injury. He asked lifestyle questions: what year did you move out, how did you grow up, all of these questions. He said you can repair your spine if you are willing to make some sacrifices and do things consistently. I started working with him once a week. He gave me a functional movement training program. Back in 2008 in rugby league it was heavy lifting, who could bench press the most. I had a phone propped up in the Roosters gym doing all these cable movements and getting grief from the other players. But I had three spine injuries in three years so the Roosters let me run my own race. By 2009 I was fit enough to play again, although I then did all three major ligaments in my left ankle in round two in Canberra. I was out for 22 weeks. But that is when I really dove into the food system and the power of nutrition and recovery.

21:00Qualifying as a nutritionist during COVID

During COVID I could not run Minifit because you cannot run kids fitness when everyone is locked down. So I studied nutrition and became a qualified nutritionist. That was really satisfying. It was more enjoyable than homeschooling.

24:00Minifit: schools, clubs, and workshops

I registered the name Minifit in 2010 and got my first school on board in 2012 while I was still playing. East Lakes Public School, once a week to run the program. When I retired in 2014 I got introduced to the CEO of Leagues Club Australia and learned that clubs have to give a certain percentage of poker machine revenue back to the community each year. I got Minifit approved in category one and category two and now run holiday clinics for kids at Wentworthville Leagues, Mounties, and other clubs. We get 200 kids in a day and it is free. I also run PE programs in schools where I come in and run 10-week programs to the syllabus for schools that outsource physical activity. And now I am adding monthly nutrition workshops for adults at my office at 100 Harris Street Pyrmont. I talk through my four foundations of nutrition.

28:30The food system: oils and sourcing

The number one thing to avoid is vegetable oils. Industrial seed oils. They are rancid in the bottle as it is. When you heat them they create free radicals. Free radicals create plaque buildup in arteries and blood vessels. It is a slow poisoning effect into cardiovascular risk. If you look at any packet food, 95 percent of it has canola oil, rapeseed oil, or cottonseed oil in the ingredients. They are cheap and taste like nothing. They are extremely high in omega-6 fatty acids and high omega-6 creates inflammation in the body. You need a balance of omega-3, omega-6, and omega-9. So switch to ghee, coconut oil, or natural animal fats for high-heat cooking. For the rest, get your produce right: pastured animal products, not grain-fed meat. Grass-fed and finished beef is leaner but the cow is healthier and has a balance of omega-3 and omega-6. Grain-fed creates fat marbling which is flavour but the omegas are imbalanced. Same with farmed salmon fed on pellets made from soy and seed oil waste. The education around looking into your source products a lot deeper is where most people can start.

34:00Daily training and the disc replacement

I started gymnastics before league, at six years old. Tumbling and trampolining, going to state. That strength and fitness built through gymnastics was perfect for rugby league. When I retired I really jumped into calisthenics and was doing that five days a week to start the day. Now I do tennis once a week, 20,000 to 25,000 steps a day, training with Aaron, and the stadium four times a week with an ice bath and sauna to finish. Core stability training is almost every day. Three back operations, so I jump on the Swiss ball for core work or stretching most nights. Three years ago I had a disc replacement at L5 S1. The surgeon looked at my MRI and said mate I can see without even looking at you that you train, look after yourself, and eat well. The operation went very smoothly.

38:00The MRI proof

When I retired I had my spine imaged again because I felt great, no back pain at all. I compared it to my 2007 image. In 2007 all the discs were black. When I retired all the rest of the discs, the non-operated ones, were white again. I had professional doctors saying it is pretty hard to rehydrate one disc let alone all of them. But that is what happened. That is why I am so passionate about getting this information out to people. I saw my body transform and repair itself.

41:00The Mini Gun and what is next

We have got another product in the pipeline called the Mini Gun. It is tiny, it is powerful, and it is metal, not plastic like the rest of them. It will rival the Theragun, that is how good it is. We are speaking to a couple of big box retailers at the moment and maybe Amazon as well. We are working out the marketing plan. There is always something I am working on because I love being busy.