S2Ep8 (Season Finale): “Thought manifestation and cancer generation” with Alessio Angelucci

Alessio is a Crossfit athlete and gym owner who was destined for greatness. Not until an ongoing unresolved hip issue was truely diagnosed with a life altering experience - CANCER. A word that evokes emotions of despair, fear, but also hope.

Join us as we delve into Alessio's journey through cancer and how he overcomes the identity issues associated with it.

@_alessioangelucci_

Transcript

Jac Simmonds  0:17  
Welcome back to The Balance Experience podcast. So here we are.

Nick Papastamatis  0:20  
Hello Jaco. 

Jac Simmonds  0:21  
How are you Nick?

Nick Papastamatis  0:22  
man, I am. Fan bloody tastic How are you?

Jac Simmonds  0:25  
I'm not too bad i've got I, um, I can't take a deep breath today though. I've got a bloodied pain in my rib that is killing me today. But um, that's ok.

Nick Papastamatis  0:34  
You should see you should see a chiropractor.

Jac Simmonds  0:36  
I should, you free off this. Nah it's good to be here, Nicko, and we've got a really good guest with us today. We've got Mr. Alessio Angelucci. I have headphones on Well, yeah, we got to actually.

Nick Papastamatis  0:54  
Look at that. Yes. Hello.

Jac Simmonds  0:58  
It's still been recording.

Nick Papastamatis  0:59  
It's all good. It's all good, guys. Sorry. For the listeners out there. We...Jac wasn't prepared. Yeah, we didn't put the headphones on.

Jac Simmonds  1:06  
That's right. Anyway, we won't be restarting.

Nick Papastamatis  1:10  
No. Okay. Let's keep going. Can you hear us?

Alessio Angelucci  1:14  
Yeah, that's good. You got us. Cool. Hello. Oh, yeah.

Nick Papastamatis  1:16  
There goes the sound of the Golden tonsils.

I'm so glad you're here, dude.

Alessio Angelucci  1:26  
I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Jac Simmonds  1:28  
No problem. So for those who don't know, Alessio, Angelucci. Alessio has yeah, a really good story, like, um, like a lot of people we've had on the podcast, but Alessio especially has, has a great story to tell. Ex professional athlete, CrossFitter, gym owner. So welcome mate. You want to just for people who don't know you haven't, you know, haven't heard or come across, you want to give yourself like a little bit of an intro.

Alessio Angelucci  2:02  
How do I start? I'm basically at the moment and just a gym owner. I love competing. I love pushing myself in all different aspects of life. I think that I've gotten to a point now where I'm very satisfied with where I am. I have a big past, obviously, in professional sports in competitive sports. And I'm super grateful for but for now, I'm super happy being the the gym owner and the person that people can sort of look up to and learn from and I get a lot more out of, I guess teaching people things than I do out of my own success nowadays. Right? Wow, I'm probably a big change for me. I'm still a very selfish person in a lot of ways, but okay, in that way I am. I think that I, I feel like I identify with myself as more of that type of person than the athlete these days. Okay.

Jac Simmonds  3:02  
Yeah.

Nick Papastamatis  3:03  
So, how long have you been a gym owner now?

Alessio Angelucci  3:06  
Um about five months, six months.

Nick Papastamatis  3:11  
And you've been working in gyms for a long time?

Alessio Angelucci  3:13  
Not that long, actually. like Tom and I always talk about how we sort of started PT'ing. Maybe five, six years ago. It was never, never something that we really wanted to go into. Obviously, we both Tom with his foot, and me with my baseball and CrossFit sort of vibe. We always wanted to make that work. But I think that we would never quite as dedicated as we could have been. I think we could have put a lot more into it. But there was....As as athletes as athletes, yeah. Yeah, very dedicated. But I look at the way a lot of other athletes nowadays put their absolute heart and soul into what they're doing. And I can look back and I can happily say that I probably didn't put as much time and effort as I needed to. Sort of hard for me to say, but at the same time, like, you live and you learn and obviously I had other priorities that I got a lot out of as well. I mean, I wouldn't have I wouldn't be with my wife now, if If I was still playing professional baseball in the US, and I'm grateful for that. So everything we did took us to this point. On the gym owner side of things, it's like I think more so. More than pts where we're I guess, I don't know if you can say this, but people people, if that make sense. Yeah. I think we we get along with people and we understand people really well. We listen to them. As much as we get frustrated with them at times we we still care very much about their happiness and making sure that their life is as good as possible. Obviously fitness falls into that somewhere, but I think it's a lot more than that. When it comes to owning a gym, you know,

Nick Papastamatis  5:03  
that's super interesting, the history of you as an athlete. And you know, I know you've you've, you know, you've called yourself selfish already. You've also called yourself that you probably didn't work hard enough as an athlete. However, the results don't really speak for themselves. The results or the results don't really show that the results are quite quite contract. Actually, you have a high level athlete. Yeah. So to think that you weren't working hard enough is a bit hard to fathom. For someone who's not athletic. Well. Maybe I am. But um, did, obviously you've gone through some hardship. Mm hmm. Do you feel like throughout your athletic career that's actually helped you to learn to become people person? 

Alessio Angelucci  5:52  
Definitely, definitely. I think that my failures were the biggest thing for me I'm as a kid, I was never really picked in top sides. I was never I never played for for New South Wales, for Australia for all those little things that you play for as you as you build through the ranks. So it was always baseball.... in baseball, I always found that I was sort of behind the eight ball. I was a natural athlete, for sure. But I was always like, very interested in the training side of things, I think, from when I was like, 16, my dad got me in the gym, and I was obviously super obsessed with building my physique and, and wanting to be as big and as strong as my dad. Yeah, like it was always it was always priority number one, you know, and that's probably led to a little bit of vanity. And as you go through your 16 to sort of 22s, you really only care about, I guess what you look like you.

Jac Simmonds  6:52  
So would you say, like with your baseball then and when you say like maybe your ... your priorities weren't completely on baseball, would you say a lot of your priority was on training during that period? Definitely. And maybe more the vanity than the performance side? 

Alessio Angelucci  7:04  
100% and that's, I think the downfall that Yeah, for sure. Like you. I look at a baseball player and I look at the typical baseball player, the best in the world are like, long, lanky, kind of vibe, people and I'm not jacked the opposite of that. In my head. You know what I mean? In my head, I don't want to be this fucking long, lanky, tall person that throws hard. I want to be this like, dominating sort of looking force that's like on the mound. Yes, I'm can play baseball, but I can also handle myself physically, you know what I mean? That was always super important to me, I will always be the hardest worker, but maybe in the wrong areas. If that makes sense. That's for sure. Okay,

Jac Simmonds  7:48  
if we, if we rewind a little bit, where does your success with baseball start? Like how old were you when when you started to see a little bit success in baseball?

Alessio Angelucci  7:56  
I was actually quite old for Australian baseball player. I was 19 when I signed and had like a few scouts, I think from the Cubs and a scout from the Padres come along and watch me work out and watch me hit some balls, throw some balls, train. And they do like a like a fairly big scouting process that come to your house, talk to your parents. So to get to know you a little bit before they make you an offer. The padres ended up...

Jac Simmonds  8:23  
saying good things about you.

Alessio Angelucci  8:26  
I think my parents wanted me to maybe to go to college. And I did initially as well. And I kind of wanted to sort of experience that whole thing. But at the same time I was 19. I was like, already going to uni at the time studying PE teaching and I was like, Fuck, this sucks. Like I just couldn't even sort of concentrate for long enough to even focus on that... 19 sounds late as well for a while Yeah, real late. And there was like a lot of resentment at that time as well towards like coaches and not being able to make it already because I knew I was good enough. And I knew that I was never in the right place at the right time. I never I never made a coach happy enough to pick me you know what I mean? I would always like fuck up in the wrong areas, or you'd get to like a, like a trial and you like, make a bunch of errors and you're like, that's not really me, you know that so you'd always let your head get in the way there's a lot of pressure. Sure. But um, basically went to this tryout got an offer from the Padres was like, I think it was like 30 grand at the time. And I was like fuck, yeah, you know, I could have waited a little bit...

Jac Simmonds  9:32  
That's a shit ton of money for 19. 

Alessio Angelucci  9:34  
Yeah, especially not having anyone pay attention to me beforehand. Yeah, I was like, Fuck, this is a dream. I'm taking this you know, and and it was a pretty easy choice for me. From there, they actually changed my position. So before I even went over, they signed me as an outfielder and a hitter. Before I went over, they were like, Oh, you know what you throw really hard. I think that you should just put the bat away and focus on pitching and I've never really pitched before so it was like the whole process was baby basically get me ready to to be a pitcher and then I would basically learn to pitch when I got there so like my first professional inning was my first ever inning. Really.

Jac Simmonds  10:15  
Wow. Okay,

Alessio Angelucci  10:16  
that was that was a mental battle. I think the first year was really good. It was all just natural talents sort of taking over so it was quite fun for me it wasn't as serious yet because I thought that I had all this time in the world. And then came to like second and third year I got the yips which is...

Nick Papastamatis  10:39  
The what?

Alessio Angelucci  10:39  
The yips...

Jac Simmonds  10:40  
That's a golf thing as well? Yeah, a lot of.... what are the yips? 

Alessio Angelucci  10:43  
It's like in baseball terms. Well, let's say let's go through golf terms golf terms like these guys sink like one two foot putts right? all day, every day. 

Jac Simmonds  10:52  
Your body just learns how to do it, unlearns how to do it just a repetitive motion you've always done so. Oh, yeah. 

That's happened to me in cricket. What the fuck is wrong with that shot right now?

It's like a completely mental thing. Yeah. So what is it in baseball?

Alessio Angelucci  11:08  
So baseball for me was I could I could stand there on the mound, throw the ball as hard as I wanted to the to the catcher. As obviously I wasn't as accurate as other pitches. I was throwing harder. So the accuracy was a little bit off. But for the most part, I could I could sort of pick where I wanted to throw it. As soon as someone hit the ball back to me, I'd pick the ball up. I'd go to throw it to first base to throw the guy out. Yeah, and the ball would fucking fly into the stands.

Whoa, yeah, I've heard that before you're just to get out of throughout the first ay. 

Yeah, pretty much you like really? I couldn't I couldn't pick off like, you know, like, he like can throw the ball to first base before you pitch it. I just just couldn't like, like, it's almost like your lost feeling and your finger. 

Jac Simmonds  11:48  
There's a dude in the MLB right now who's going through that? I can't think of his name, though. I don't know if you watch it. But anyway, moving on. Yeah, it's

Alessio Angelucci  11:54  
it's interesting that that there's a there's a lot of them that have like gone through it. And it's kind of weird, because it's like, it's such a big thing, I think, in in a lot of minor league baseball players, but they don't really talk about it. And they don't treat it like an injury either. So it got to the point where I had it like, the year before I got released. I had a really good year. It was spring training. And I was sort of going through a little bit of a little bit of the yips and they could see that my confidence wasn't quite there yet. They basically called me and said, Hey, not quite there this year, I was only throwing like 92 miles an hour when I was throwing 95 miles an hour last year, which is completely normal for spring training anyway, but I think it was like they weren't really willing to sort of bear with me in that in that time.

Nick Papastamatis  12:44  
Hang on. You said something just there that I want to dive into a bit. You said that they don't treat yips like an injury?

Alessio Angelucci  12:52  
Yeah. Yeah. 

Nick Papastamatis  12:53  
What do you mean? 

Alessio Angelucci  12:54  
I mean, like, it's almost get the fuck over it and get it sorted sort of thing. It's not like, Oh, you've got a labrum tear. Let's do this. Together. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't. 

Nick Papastamatis  13:07  
So how would you How would you manage? I don't know like what I it sounds like a brain issue when you're dealing with the yips. I'm still getting familiar with this term as it is. 

Jac Simmonds  13:18  
So there's a in the NBA, there's a the number one draft pick, I think, probably two years ago, his name was Markell Fultz. He went through this, he was great shooter, like sinking through free throws all day. And then he gets to the NBA. And his technique just completely changes and he can't sink a free throw. This is like two years ago, he's still going through it. And he said, how would someone manage an issue like this? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's all psychological. It's got to be. Surely it's not mechanical.

Alessio Angelucci  13:44  
Honestly, it got to a point where I completely changed positions. So I went from once I'd got back from being released, I went through a period where I just was like, fuck this, I'm not playing baseball anymore. played rugby league for about three years for an A Grade team down in the beaches. And I was like, sort of had to just completely forget about it. When I went back to it, it was like, sort of not there anymore, but it's still there. Like revisits in my mind a little bit sometimes. I turned into a catcher after I got back so I went from pitcher to catcher and I just found that the the throwing motion of being a catcher. Agreed a lot more with me mentally. So just it's sort of just went away. I don't know if that went away.

Nick Papastamatis  14:11  
Well, like it's resonating with me. And that's why I'm curious. Because not only did it happen when I was batting like I couldn't hit a leg glance. Like which is a it's a bread and butter shot in cricket. I get it off your pads. It should be four runs. Yeah. The amount of times I've missed this. Yeah, that like the amount of times I've missed this shot is like I would have scored at least three centuries. Yeah, right. They'd also happened to me catching so I was I used to be really good at like in the outfield. But my ability to catch just, there was one game I dropped four catches, huh? I don't know what the fuck happened to me. Yeah, but dead set. It's like, I even got my eyes checked.

Jac Simmonds  15:18  
Yeah, and AIessio I know you're getting into golf lately. Yeah, have you noticed it in golf?

Alessio Angelucci  15:23  
Not not at all.

Nick Papastamatis  15:26  
An excuse of being shit.

Jac Simmonds  15:30  
I just can't pull the trigger some days like really? Yeah, yeah,

Alessio Angelucci  15:32  
it's I think it's probably more common in golf like, especially in like amateur golfers like that. That two foot put must be like the hardest part in the world. You know? Like, it's, for me. It hasn't affected my golf at all, because I haven't played enough golf. To start to think about it. It'll come mate. So I like that. Honestly. That's probably why I avoid playing golf in in a serious sort of way. Yeah, like Tommy me and I will go and play and some weeks we'll play like twice a week and I'll see myself starting to like, think about it. And I don't want to even get into this. I just want to play it for fun. 

Nick Papastamatis  16:08  
Who's Tommy? 

Alessio Angelucci  16:08  
Tommy Leatherby. Yeah, he's um probably I guess, probably my best mate. Now, I guess if you if you think about that, sorry, tell me if I'm not your best mate. He told me he was like he trained with us at athletics. I guess I met him at Fitness first. Back in the day, we were doing like a lot of bodybuilding sessions. And we're buddy, I guess here's like one of those dudes, you look over. And he's training with his mate doing an arm pump, and I'm doing fucking chest and he's, you sort of know each other through that sort of thing. And then we bumped into each other at athletic and started training together. He long story short, I went over to chocolate box at one point to be a coach, he also came over so I sort of got him a little gig, they're doing a couple hours a week, once COVID came around, there was like a little bit of a not falling out. But I guess we just sort of parted ways with chocolate box. And then from there, we've been sort of inseparable, I guess, we've sort of had a very common interest. He's amazing human family man, got twins got a beautiful wife, very similar to my wife, we just got along in in every way, you know, both ex athletes, very similar way of thinking, we both have the same aspirations, we both want to still go to the CrossFit Games and, and be the best that in, in our craft, I guess. And we both really, really love coaching, you know, like, it wasn't so much about, about building a gym, it's, it's us wanting to be the best coach that we can be. And I guess that's what's I guess different about our gym in a way is that we really, really want to be involved in Yeah, in everything that we do there. You know, it's not like create a gym, get some coaches get them to coach and step back. It was like almost the opposite. 

Nick Papastamatis  18:09  
You feel like there's a difference? Do you feel like there's a relationship between your what you experienced going through the yips, how you were treated? And how that's taught you to treat others? Definitely. So I'm really curious, what does it taught you?

Alessio Angelucci  18:26  
Um, I'm a lot more, I guess, patient with people who are going through a mental struggle. Physical, I mean, anyone can get through something, something physical, you know, if it's hard, I mean, you have either got it or you don't you know what I mean? mentally, I think there's a, there's a certain patience that you need to show to actually get the best out of someone, you know, there's, I think I've developed a good way of reading someone's personality, to be able to relate with them and make them feel comfortable in a situation. You know what I mean? Yes. And that's, and that's the best part about, I guess, working with people on a daily basis is that you walk away and you're like, Fuck, that was like, that was really nice to be able to get through to them in that way. And to see someone's mind sort of just flick the switch and just be like, Oh, yeah, okay, no matter how many times obviously, it's probably going to take them a lot more times than one conversation to get to get through to them. But I think it's definitely helped me to be a lot more open minded. I think I would have been a lot more narrow minded as a younger, sort of adult. And I would have been more like, get the fuck over it and move on. But now I'm like there's, there's definitely a big big correlation between like, nerves, and I guess not having confidence in your own ability. I guess to your athletic ability. You know what I mean? Like if if there were if there are a way of making young athletes be able to believe in themselves and just back their ability there would be some fucking insane athletes out there. 

Nick Papastamatis  20:06  
So what is the issue do you find with the higher level coaches that do you feel like there's not enough praise? And

Alessio Angelucci  20:13  
definitely, okay, definitely, I found that a lot. I found I found that that patience for failure was was not quite there. And I still actually remember the first throw, that gave me the yips because it was a, it was a rainy day. And it was the first day of spring training, we all got out in the field, we're just sort of playing catch for the fun of it. And I let go of a ball and you know, like a baseball gets like wet and slippery, like a bar of soap, got slippery, let it go. almost hit one of my coaches that was just standing on the hill. And he was like, What the fuck you doing? like fucking lost his shit. Like cuz obviously. All they want is perfection.

Nick Papastamatis  20:59  
That ball would have got launched in the wrong direction.

Alessio Angelucci  21:04  
It was not a good like, and it was like first day of spring, like you want to come in and be perfect, right? And that's the thing, like they want to just be they want everything to be perfect. And and there's no variance. 

Jac Simmonds  21:15  
You reckon they're just missing out on some talent A lot of the time, just the lack of patience? Yeah,

Alessio Angelucci  21:20  
I think I think that they're not really tapping into people's subconscious. And I guess and that's what it is, is your subconscious not believing in yourself. And it's that fear of failure, and that fear of disappointing someone else. I think a lot of people go through it. And they don't say anything. And I think that a lot of those old school coaches with their old school approaches, are like probably killing a lot more talent than they than they are doing good, you know, for those insane athletes that are naturally just I guess, hard headed and can see past all that sort of stuff then they'll they'll be able to get through but yeah,

Nick Papastamatis  21:57  
But I think that's a rare athlete thats the Michael Jordans. Yeah, like, you know, he didn't need a fucking coach to tell him whether he's going well or not.

Jac Simmonds  22:07  
Yeah, and that's an anomoly.

Alessio Angelucci  22:09  
I don't think I don't think he cared. You know, I didn't.

Nick Papastamatis  22:11  
Yeah, he knew he was better than everyone anyway.

Jac Simmonds  22:14  
Yeah, they should have been well, Michael Jordan's out there that just weren't

Alessio Angelucci  22:19  
100% 100% talent

Jac Simmonds  22:20  
wise at least so what um, during your baseball as well, like, in terms of physical injuries did you have many many physical injuries? 

Alessio Angelucci  22:28  
Literally the worst that would happen was like a little bit of like fluid buildup in the elbow.. elbow... Yeah. Like Yeah, like that. 

Jac Simmonds  22:37  
That finishes a lot of baseball as either Yeah, Tommy John. Yeah.

Alessio Angelucci  22:40  
Tommy John. Like a lot of them come back from Tommy John better but...

Nick Papastamatis  22:45  
For those listening. Tommy John, is a type of elbow issue on the inside elbow from whipping the ball. Yeah, through the pitch. And usually you need surgery to correct that because ...Is it the tendon that that you're used to ligament ligament just becomes very lacks and they need to need to tighten that up. But then it's you Is it is it more the fact that they have they keep on redoing it? Or is it repetitive strain things?

Jac Simmonds  22:53  
And there's like some good evidence as well that like pitchers also have adaptive like rotator cuff tears over time as well. Just from that, like just the amount of external rotation you go through.

Alessio Angelucci  23:24  
Yeah, I look at a baseball pitch in slow motion. It's like

Jac Simmonds  23:28  
massive range the hands

Alessio Angelucci  23:30  
like well below well, below the shoulder you know, yeah, it's kind of like scary when you look at it in slow mo, but 

Nick Papastamatis  23:36  
it is literally like one more degree in the elbow and the shoulder should be out of its socket.

Alessio Angelucci  23:40  
Yeah. Yeah, you look at some of those long whippy dudes, it's ridiculous along the amount of torque that they get from from that shoulder joint.

Nick Papastamatis  23:48  
that's why most of the pitchers are gonna be long bean polls because they need they basically need to be just elastic. Elastic slings with leverage,

Jac Simmonds  23:55  
levers that have...and we getting into some nerdy stuff here. But like levers would have a lot to do with the amount of torque.

Nick Papastamatis  24:00  
I was looking at this humorus, Alessio's humorous compared to his forearms quite a lot longer. And I just wonder whether you'd be you'd be better off having longer humuri.

Jac Simmonds  24:10  
Yeah, probably that's going to be a lever point isn't gonna be the point. Yeah.

Nick Papastamatis  24:14  
It'd be like using your glute for a deadlift. Hmm, yes.

Jac Simmonds  24:18  
Yeah. There you go. So you're pretty lucky. It sounds like Yeah,

Nick Papastamatis  24:26  
yes. Yes. Yeah.

Jac Simmonds  24:27  
That sounds like a limiting thing with the baseball was the hips over time.

Alessio Angelucci  24:31  
Yeah, I honestly like that. That definitely would have been it.

Nick Papastamatis  24:35  
It wasnt the humerus length.

Jac Simmonds  24:38  
what was the transition out of baseball then? When did when did that come to an end?

Alessio Angelucci  24:42  
That was that was actually really, really tough for me, I think. And I say this to a lot of people like I used to be quite religious, not not very, very religious as in go to church and, and do all that sort of stuff, but Like every Christmas, we go to church, every Easter, we'd go to church, not on a weekly basis. And I used to have this little like ritual every single night really, that I would that I would pray and I'd be like, thankful for everything. I had asked for all this stuff from, from God, and I would be like, please help the sick, please help me to be better at baseball, please help me to think more kindly about people and all this sort of stuff. And I was like, when I got released, was the first time that I stopped praying, which was like a massive thing for me. And I and I kind of just gave up and I was just like, you know what, like, because of, I've done everything right. In my head, I was the hardest worker there. You know, I would win all the fitness tests, I would win all the all anything that we ever did. I was by far the hardest worker, and for me getting released was like a slap in the face. And I was like, You know what, I'm willing to fucking put my ass on the line for you. And you're not willing to just stand by me while I go through some mental shit. It was like.

Jac Simmonds  26:08  
It sounds like that there is some resentment there. Yeah, to the sport.

Alessio Angelucci  26:11  
Yeah, to the to the sport. I got home. I was like, I'm not playing baseball anymore. My parents were pretty supportive about it. I felt like I needed to sort of get some things out of my system. So I started to play rugby league I played soccer for for a little while sort of refound my love for soccer. And then, maybe two, three years later, I ended up getting an offer to go play in Italy, baseball. took that. It was like sort of reignited my passion for it. And then I met Amy actually, I flew Amy over to, to Milan to see me. And I ended up sort of almost wanting to like, go home and just start a normal life. You know what I mean? Like the, the athlete life is, is definitely really, really fun. And it's like, I loved being by myself, I loved living in a hotel, I loved the whole freedom of it all, and not having a job. But at the same time, it's like, everything's on hold. All of my relationships had gone to shit because of what I was doing. You know, like, there was obviously I had a, I had a girlfriend, most of the time when I was in the US. And that was obviously not a very healthy relationship because I was a young piece of shit back then. Yeah. And it's sort of put everything...I put everything into perspective. And I was like, when Amy came over, I was like, Fuck, I just, I just really love this person. And I and I don't think that I can actually do this to this person. Well, on a on a regular basis. I don't think I can go away for six months at a time and just pretend like, everything's about me. You know what I mean? Before I was like, You know what, any girl that I meet baseballs first. And that's that, you know, and that's the kind of attitude that I had towards it. But this time, it was like, You know what, I really liked this person. I've liked her since I was 14 years old. I want to give it a proper go. And I actually got injured when she came over. When she left. I was like, you know, I'm kind of ready to just fucking go home and start a normal life.

Nick Papastamatis  28:34  
So you like, it's either I'm gonna do rehab, or I'm actually gonna go spend time with someone I genuinely like/love.

Alessio Angelucci  28:40  
Yeah, yeah, just like you just find yourself. Like, it's almost it's quite an empty life. Like, I don't know if you've ever been an athlete or if you've experienced that life at all, but it's, it's not. It's, it's quite lonely. You're, you're thrown in with with a bunch of guys that you just have to have to get along with. And lucky for me, I got along with like, pretty much everyone that I ever played with. There was never any issues. But you leave everyone you love at home. And it's like fuck. Everyone's getting along with their lives knew. And to be honest, you get back and it's like five years later, I've done nothing. Like what have I done? 

Nick Papastamatis  29:17  
At the end of the day, when you're when you're being friends with the other athletes that are in your team. Like it turned into a bit of a brotherhood or sisterhood. But really, when push comes to shove, will you choose you'll continual career or will you choose that relationship? Hmm. And if it means that it's either you or the other person? It's like

Jac Simmonds  29:41  
yeah, and professional sport is very fickle as well. Right? It has to be unfortunately like the reality of it one to one injury away from it all being over

Nick Papastamatis  29:49  
so how deep are these relationships, really.

Alessio Angelucci  29:52  
They're not

Nick Papastamatis  29:53  
that I'm sure I'm sure they'd be the one or two really close relationships that are that are like not not defined by w.. which club you're in or. But when it comes to like, you know, if you're friends with someone that's also a pitcher.

Alessio Angelucci  30:09  
Yeah. And that happened to me, that happened to me, like, on multiple occasions where my best mate was there. And he got released, and then I find another best mate and he got released about another. I can't How is that good for you? You know? It's not it's not it's not at all. It's, it's, it's very lonely and it's you. And I tell people this all the time now. And I probably shouldn't. I think you need to think very hard about what you want in life. And if your goal is to be an athlete, and to to be the very best at that sport, you better fucking make sure that you're the best at that sport, you know, and there's a there's a major league baseball player, and this was what kind of opened my eyes to, to life after sport, a guy called Rick Ankiel. He wrote a book, I forgot what the book was called. But it's probably the only book that I've ever read. And it's sort of a by the end of the book. It had me in tears a bit. And it was like, that was the moment that I realized that all this time I'd spent so much of my life worrying about Fuck, I want to be a professional baseball player. That's all I want to do. I'd never even thought of what the fuck happens afterwards, this guy had a, like a 20 year major league career gets to the end of his major league career. No one gives a shit about him. Right?

Jac Simmonds  31:38  
It's, you know, it's a massive issue in professional sports.

Alessio Angelucci  31:40  
It's terrible. It's like, it makes me honestly makes me second guess whether I want my son or daughter to follow that path. 

Jac Simmonds  31:49  
Well, thankfully, in Australia, now, we have like system set up, like I know, in the AFL, and in the NRL, like all the professional players have to have some sort of like tertiary education going on whilst it whilst they're playing. Yeah. Which, you know, hopefully sets them up for some sort of career after professional sport that, you know, in situations like yours, where you're, you know, bouncing between countries and different, you know, there's, it's going to be always very tricky to set up a career when you're in another country. That's not that's not your native country as well.

Alessio Angelucci  32:21  
Yeah, exactly. And especially in America, where like, it's all about America, and you're just as good as the dude from Texas. But that dude from Texas has like, an obvious I guess, upper hand by by having something in common with the coach or having like, there's always there's always something that's gonna be subjective, right? I don't care who you are, I, as a person have subjective views on people. And I don't think that I could separate my subjective views from from picking someone over someone else based on like, their personality based on how they interact with other people based on all of the shit that they're not really taking into account.

Nick Papastamatis  33:05  
And I often wonder, like, when you're watching the Olympics, and you're watching, say, the diving, or gymnastics, and they give them a, weird ass score, like 8.36 recurring?

Jac Simmonds  33:18  
Yeah, you're like,

Nick Papastamatis  33:20  
How, did you get to that? 

Alessio Angelucci  33:22  
You're not a robot?

Nick Papastamatis  33:24  
So yeah, it's crazy. Um, in terms of like, so you've come back. So let's say you come back, you've come back for Amy your wife.

Alessio Angelucci  33:33  
And let's not say I've come back for her, because she'll feel very weird. No, no, no, but come on. I think she'll feel bad about that.

Nick Papastamatis  33:45  
No, it was was sounded like, 

Alessio Angelucci  33:46  
honestly, very much your choice. I do tell her all the time. But that was that's what change. That's what changed everything. Yeah, well, for sure. 

Nick Papastamatis  33:53  
And that's huge, right, like your heart for people. One over your own desire for sport. And that's, that's sort of its its lending towards what we've been talking about in, in being in the people, people. You're a people person in the industry of gym ownership. And so it's almost like that sort of, it's almost like that's one your heart person has won your heart more than the sport itself. So when you come back to Australia, when did you end to like start doing CrossFit?

Alessio Angelucci  34:28  
It was, let's just say five years ago, when was that?

Jac Simmonds  34:33  
2015. 

Alessio Angelucci  34:34  
Okay, let's say let's say the 2020 was 20. Feels like yeah, like, I don't know exactly, but let's say the 2015 2016 CrossFit open, yeah, would have been my first open right. And then so that was obviously at CrossFit athletic in Mona Vale. And then I sort of made my way down to Brooky. All right, yeah, with Seano and Tash and then made my way down the Brooky, obviously did that whole peak program, all of that. And to be honest, that was like for me a sport that I get to be fucking jacked. And that's literally my sport is jetting is as athletic as possible. And obviously, there's so much other skill and all that stuff that goes into it. But me as a perfectionist, getting to perfect those skills was like, this is a fucking dream of a sport, you know, like, I get to lift weights, and that is what I'm doing as my sport as well.

Jac Simmonds  35:38  
So can I ask the question, and I said, I can't remember who told me this, but someone who knows you but basically the story was that the first time they they took.... First time they took it to do

Nick Papastamatis  35:51  
It's to do with a barbell. Okay.

Jac Simmonds  35:55  
First time training CrossFit. And before that you just been doing like your bodybuilding training or whatever. Yeah, that you did. 140 kilos clean. 

Alessio Angelucci  35:59  
It was disgusting. Yeah. Like, I think it would have been between 130 and 140. It was a power clean. Yeah, it was like it was never done a clean before never done a clea?n of strength. But just the straight to 130 are good. Definitely our sense of back. It was probably honestly like three of three, four months in Yeah, I wouldn't have been the first time I picked up a barbell first time. I tried an overhead squat was the most disgusting thing ever. Like it was like, I couldn't even make my way down. I couldn't even hardly bend my knees, you know. But Sean sort of set that all straight very quickly. He, he made me. I guess he brought me down to earth a little bit, which was probably the best thing that I've ever done. Actually just pulling back and listening to someone about lifting weights and and I guess, taking in everything that I could. And the funny thing was I learned more from the people that moved badly than I did from the people that moved really well. Like every skill that I picked up was from seeing someone do something wrong. And that's kind of when everything kicked in. And I was like slowly starting to see this momentum build up. And it was just like, very, very quick, I guess. What would you call it? adaptation to the sport? Yeah.

Jac Simmonds  37:23  
It was pretty natural to you.

Alessio Angelucci  37:24  
Yeah. Yeah. I think I think just because I loved I loved being in the gym. I loved that whole environment. And I just, I just got to do what I loved Finally, you know.

Nick Papastamatis  37:34  
So you then, like, I haven't heard that you've had many injuries in this lead up. So I know. I know that you've had a few. Yeah. So what are some of the major ones that you've had along the way like, obviously had that medial elbow?

Alessio Angelucci  37:49  
Basically, I've torn my MCL off the bone that was a stupid injured. Baseball injury? Oh, no, no, no, I was. I was installing garage doors. After I got back from baseball. I installed garage doors about five years ago, in a nutshell, my uncle's business. It was just like, that was probably not my proudest years as an athlete, but it was like was that it was... 

Jac Simmonds  38:12  
Did it have its ups and downs?

Alessio Angelucci  38:20  
It there was a roll door on the top of the ute and I was like paranoid about damaging doors. And it was I looked over at it and I hadn't had it tied down. So it was like obviously one of those big roll things rolling off the ute. So I sprinted over to the ute did like a slide tackle underneath the door where it was about to fall. And the door just fucking landed on my knee. I tore my MCL off the bone. I didn't know I've done it at a time. So I'd like sprinted up the driveway. Fucking leg was like and then like a couple of weeks later, I got a scan and it was like torn off the bone but that's like, short story. Basically patellar tendonitis....

Nick Papastamatis  39:04  
Slide tackle component makes it sport. Yeah, it was super slide tackle. Yeah.

Alessio Angelucci  39:10  
patella tendinitis ongoing or tendinopathy whatever you want to call it. On the other side, you know how bad it's been? Honestly, other than that, like a few broken thumbs I've got like a few plates in my in my hand like just from baseball slides and all that sort of stuff. But honestly like, nothing significant.

Nick Papastamatis  39:29  
It's pretty awesome because like, I've definitely found that some of the best some of the like when you have it really comes down to how well does chiro physio enhance someone's ability to perform? You can't say yes. But you can say that if you have a really long run, of being able to train uninterrupted the gains that you get from that for having no breaks allows you to then continually progressively overload and D load and structure your program with no interruption.

Jac Simmonds  40:08  
I think I said this in the podcast we did together Nicko, but like in in my footy growing up and the guys who've made it the AFL, like obviously they're very talented, but they're the ones with the best longevity as well.

Nick Papastamatis  40:20  
And sometimes that's genetic. And sometimes like you just you're robust. So just to keep training keep playing, some people just fall apart.

Alessio Angelucci  40:26  
Yeah, more minutes under the belt. Like dudes with hamstring injuries, like how much like that definitely, like I guess genetically predisposed to it because of the levers because of like, little little intricacies. Yeah, it's like, I feel like if you're one of those people, you're just one of those people that are just prone, you know what I mean,

Jac Simmonds  40:46  
baseball pitchers who have like a big carrying angle, they're going to be more prone to UCL tears and things like that. Yeah, yes, definitely genetics plays into it.

Nick Papastamatis  40:53  
So then you eventually came in to us as you like, how far into your training were you when you eventually presented to us with that hip issue?

Alessio Angelucci  41:03  
Probably two years into CrossFit. Maybe possibly into my 30... 

Nick Papastamatis  41:07  
Had you gone to the games yet? At that? 

Alessio Angelucci  41:09  
No, no, I'd I've done a couple of comps. I've done like Dmark. And like all those little ones down the coast. Yeah. I think the most recent one there would have been like that BTS throw down, but nothing, nothing serious. We were just gearing up to go to regionals with that team of six like Mitchi, Harry, Dom, and Tash and all those guys. But then that was the year that all the girls went individual. So we had Oh, yeah, we had no girls, which was cool to see them go individual anyway. But that was the year.

Nick Papastamatis  41:44  
Yeah, yeah. Did you want to tell us about what you felt and and we'll get to what it was in the end.

Alessio Angelucci  41:52  
Basically sort of was was getting a lot of referral, paint down the left side of my leg into my glute had like a little, like a little bulge on that pelvis, pelvis side on the left side of my pelvis, I guess. And I was getting like a lot of what is that? What is that? Sciatic pain? Yes. Yeah, Sciatic pain, basically, like at night, I would get a lot of discomfort when I trained. Sometimes it would be gone. To be honest, like there would be no pain, but I think that might have been from the anti inflammatories that I was taking at the time. When you're obviously training for CrossFit, you, you lose. I guess sight of what an actual injury is, and what you being a weak person is.

Nick Papastamatis  42:45  
Yeah. You're just perpetually sore.

Alessio Angelucci  42:47  
Yeah, yeah, you just sort of expect to be sore. And I was like, Okay, this is probably normal. Like, I have a little bit of back pain, like maybe I've got a bulging disc or something like that, but I'm sort of willing to push through it. And then I came to see you guys probably went to a bunch of other physios just to like sort of get an idea of what was going on. Bunch of physios would have like needled it and played around with and by it, I mean, your bulge on my, on my pelvis. But it went for probably how long? Like it went for a while eight months. Yeah. 

Nick Papastamatis  43:21  
We, I suppose it was on and off in terms of Yeah, treating you. And then it was it was like, I think a lot of work was done by our man Rich, Richard Kan. And I think it's funny because, um, you're it was, it was never persistent enough for you to be as persistent as well. No. And it's like, it would, you'd present mechanically. So it'd be like, I get pain when I after I squat. This, that and the other. And, you know, when you when we talk about it retrospectively, and you look at all the potential red flags that are there. It's like, Oh, yeah, sciatic night pain. You know, there's a bulge, a mechanical bulge there.

Alessio Angelucci  44:04  
Yeah. It's like, I probably left out night sweats when you probably asked me the first 1000 times.

Jac Simmonds  44:10  
was the pain pretty severe, early on? 

Alessio Angelucci  44:14  
It was at times, like Nick said, like, Fuck, you just, you just don't know. Like, I don't I don't know the difference between like a, like a real pain and, and something that's just trivial, you know what I mean? So, and I wasn't willing to let it affect my pursuit to go to the games of that time either. So we were looking to go to regionals at that time, and I was like, Fuck that.

Jac Simmonds  44:37  
You are subconsciously telling yourself that yes. Nothing. Yeah,

Alessio Angelucci  44:39  
yeah. Voltaren 50 Yeah. Yeah. It was....

Nick Papastamatis  44:46  
I think it was. It wasn't until I think it was rich that just said to you, hey, mate, like how long are we gonna fuckin just try and manage the symptoms he like how long has this been going on for a and b how we're going to get rid of this. Because you shouldn't have this. Good call by Richard.

Alessio Angelucci  45:03  
Very good call.

Jac Simmonds  45:03  
By that time did you was your gut feel that something wasn't right?

Alessio Angelucci  45:11  
Honestly, my whole life, I've been petrified that I have cancer in some way. It was funny, we went to the running track at narrabeen. And I was, it was probably the worst that my hip has ever been or my my. At the time, I thought it was my glute, and I thought it was torn or something. We were running around the track and I had to like, stop. And I was just like, I can't I can't do this anymore. Like, it felt like my hip had, like, impinge. And I couldn't even like move. So I was like, 10 minutes before I was sprinting my ass off, like, racing Harry down the track. And after a while, I just had to stop sort of turn around to everyone. I was like, Fuck, what if I have cancer? Like, what if I'm, what if? What if this thing's like a tumor in my hip or something like that? You know, we were actually saying that. Yeah, legit was saying that, like Hannah Chominsky was there, Harry was there. I was like, Fuck, what if it's cancer? No, like not, it's not fucking cancer. It's fine.

Jac Simmonds  46:06  
So you deep down started to think something...

Alessio Angelucci  46:09  
Honestly, like, I've always been paranoid of it. So I mean, I probably always forget this word with the M, what's that word? With M?

Nick Papastamatis  46:22  
mulligatawny.

Alessio Angelucci  46:25  
Manifest manifest manifest. I was convinced that I manifested over my whole life, you know, just being stressed about, about money about being sick about not making it and all that sort of stuff, you know? But yeah, what are we talking about? The track?

Nick Papastamatis  46:45  
Yeah, manifesting. Essentially, like almost like, creating your reality.

Alessio Angelucci  46:50  
Yeah, yeah, I think so. Like, I put it down to that, like, what else? What else? Could it be? Like? It's not genetic? It's not anything like that. I think. I think the stress has a big factor. I mean, there's a lot of things that I that I wasn't happy with at the time. I don't think that it could have come out sideways and turned into something. 

Nick Papastamatis  47:13  
it's a it's obviously a very, the, what you're talking about is a metaphysical, energetic way of looking at life. And definitely, I definitely resonate with it. I also look at it and I'm like, Yeah, but there's also science. The science that we know, and there's also the science we don't. And so, can you create something that you just manifest on? I fucking think so. I think so. But can can we explain that? No. But anyway, let's not get too deep.

Jac Simmonds  47:53  
Sounds like, it sounds like yourself and Richard, probably at the same roughly the same time, we're thinking, Okay, like, this is going on too long. Like, let's take this next step and figure out what it is.

Nick Papastamatis  48:04  
because what should happen like so if you're getting hit pain, you should respond in a progressive and predictable, easonable in a progressive, it should be predictable in a reasonable time frame.

Jac Simmonds  48:17  
it should be it should match the diagnosis as well. And it should,

Nick Papastamatis  48:21  
yeah, it should match what's actually going on. Yes. And so the fact that it wouldn't, started to raise alarm bells, you know, like, we he, and this is the thing with red flags, right, like healthy? How old are you?

Alessio Angelucci  48:38  
2017. So, probably 29 at the time.

Nick Papastamatis  48:44  
are you 30?

So you're healthy, 29 year old, athletic background. We're getting some glute pain because he fucking trained his ass off. he happens to get night pain, which could just be inflammatory and fatigue. And he also gets night sweats, which could be because he's, he's fried his nervous system. And I can sleep in a bedroom, one bedroom apartment and I can just be very hot. Yeah, like, like, you know, to get this right. And to look past all the most likely causes of all his symptoms. It's like, you could let that go on for heaps longer. Yeah,

Alessio Angelucci  49:22  
if I wasn't training, I probably wouldn't even have noticed it to be honest.

Nick Papastamatis  49:25  
Well, yeah, I mean, the fact that you are loading it is the reason why one of the reasons why

Jac Simmonds  49:30  
Noticed it until later or at least Yeah,

Nick Papastamatis  49:32  
maybe the night sweats would have been more obviously. Yeah.

Jac Simmonds  49:37  
so you went and got this MRI what was so there's obviously a delay between the MRI and the results. What was what was that time like?

Alessio Angelucci  49:42  
So the the whole process was like, when I went to get their MRI, I was I get kind of weird in in that sort of setting and I was like, literally came out of the MRI wet like dripping wet and I got out I was like, it was after like 40 minutes in the MRI machine and the lady was like, Hey, you got to go back in there. We want to put some some colored dye through your system just to see something. Right. And I was like, Oh, yeah, that's pretty normal. I was like, Fuck, I gotta do it again. Did It Again, came out dripping wet again. The lady was like, Okay, well, we'll send your results to the doctor. That was on the Friday. It was my birthday actually. We went away for the weekend, Ames and I, on the way back. I messaged Rich, and I was like, Hey, what's up? Have you heard anything from the doctor yet? He said, I'll give you a call tonight. This is probably very rough. But he he said that he'll he'll get back to me tonight he'll hear back from him. When I got home, sort of was just sort of waiting around. We were about to have dinner. And I was about to take a bite out of this spaghetti bowl and that Ames had just made for me. And Rich called. And I was like, Hey Rich, what's going on? I think you were on the line. Oh, yeah. You you're on the phone. And they were like, Listen, there's this something that we've found. It's not very good. I think that was that was your words, as well.

Nick Papastamatis  51:25  
Yeah. Yeah.

Alessio Angelucci  51:27  
It's not very good. And I think you explained it to me, actually. Do you remember what you said to me?

Nick Papastamatis  51:32  
I pretty much had to dance around this word. Yeah. Because what was on the MRI was very pretty, it was pretty clear what it was. And so I pretty much had to just use the words that were on the MRI. Because that's specifically what I can go off and I'm not, I'm not an oncologist. And I'm not a I'm not a specialist. I'm a chiropractor. And

Alessio Angelucci  52:03  
that was the vibe I was getting. Yes, yes.

Nick Papastamatis  52:05  
Yes. Actually, I feel like Yes, yes. This is not good. Get to the fuck to the hospital now.

Alessio Angelucci  52:12  
Definitely. Definitely came across that way. Yeah. But they were very good about it. Like I felt I felt reasonably comfortable when I got off the phone. Like honestly, like, obviously, the whole world blacked out and I went a little bit sad. I think that was probably the only time that I had cried about it. Besides, for like, obviously, when we finally got diagnosed, we basically stopped eating. Yeah. went to Google and started Googling. All these things that were that could have been what it is. I think, you know, Dan, .... Yeah. He was actually saying to me, he's like, dude, I found this thing. It's fine. Like, a lot of weight lifters Get it? It's like a, it's like a, like a tumour that they get from lifting heavy weights, and I was like phew its fine. I was sitting on my bed and I was like crying. Amy Amy works in medicine, doesn't she? Yeah, she's a pharmacist. Yeah. Okay. Her dad actually called. And she quickly explained. What was that word? What was the word?

Nick Papastamatis  53:28  
It was I think it was a he was a Milo. It was a sarcoma of some sort.

Alessio Angelucci  53:33  
Yeah, she, she's, she said, whatever it was to him. And he was like, oh, fuck, like his, his initial reaction really, really scared her. I think that I guess that whole that whole time was kind of a blur. But the next day, we went, got a blood test. That doctor sent us directly to get like CT scans, PET scans. I had a I had a bone scan and I remember we were sort of watching you know, on a bone scan how you can sort of see it come down. Yeah. We were watching it come down. And I was like praying, I was looking at Ames. I was like, Fuck, I hope it's just not anywhere else. Like I just can't handle it. This being like in my legs in my everywhere. And thankfully, we saw it only in my hip. And it was pretty large. It was like pretty much the size of the left side of my pelvis. You know, it was like when it's lit up like that. It looks huge. It also I'm pretty sure it also infiltrated the bone. Yes, yeah. Yeah, it was. I think it was about eight centimeters by by 10 centimeters or something like that. So pretty big. And they left me in the in the bone scan room and I heard everyone like talking outside and I sort of wondered out there. I was like what the fuck is going on? Like they must be just giving them a diagnosis without me and I walked in and Ames was crying. Dad was crying. And the doctor sort of turned to me and he was like, it's not good. Like, you've got a pretty aggressive form of, of cancer. We believe it to be bone cancer. So we need to send you for a bunch of tests and, and all this stuff. And I just remember at the time, I was like, sort of numb to it, walked out, made a joke to Ames and dad, and I was like, Oh, this is fucking good sort of thing. Like they laughed. And then from that point, I think I just flipped the switch. And I was like, Okay, I've got cancer. Let's fucking get on with it, you know? And that was like, it was actually so weird because I um. And I always say to Ames, I'm like, I would way rather have been me in that situation than have been Ames and dad, because it's like, in your own head, you just, like, you don't know it until it happens. But you just flip the switch. And it's like, survival mode. And it's,

Jac Simmonds  56:02  
you start worrying about the people around you.

Alessio Angelucci  56:03  
Yeah, yeah. And it's like, everything sort of gets put into perspective. You know, like, from that point on, I was like, Okay, now all I've got to do is live. Yeah. And it was kind of refreshing, in a way. 

Jac Simmonds  56:14  
Hmm, it must be interesting. That moment where you're like faced with your own your own mortality. Yeah. And you've got to face these thoughts for the first time in your life. And it's interesting, like, you hear this from people who do get that news. And it's, it's, it's always a lot of people will say that the first thing I think about is the people around them. It sounds like you did the same thing thought about Amy, thought about your family.

Alessio Angelucci  56:36  
Definitely. And it's not as it's, you expect it to be in a very selfish way where I would expect for the person that I am, and I say this, like, all the time, I'm like, Fuck, I don't want to die. And then everyone else, just stay here and get to, like, live this mad life. You know, I don't want to miss out on anything that anyone's doing. But it wasn't that when I was sick, when I was sick, it was like, it was, it was totally selfless. And all I really wanted to do is like, spend quality time with Ames and spend quality time with the people that I that I really wanted to see, even for them, living for them. And it was like, nothing seemed to matter anymore. You know, it was it was like, the only time that I didn't think about baseball, I didn't think about whether I'm going to be going to the CrossFit Games. And yes, that crept into it after a while, but like, it was just really nice to think about nothing but surviving, to be honest, it was well, it was an escape, in a way. It was amazing to get like all the support from everyone. That's the first time that I think that I've ever got that amount of overwhelming support. And if you've ever had or been through anything, whether it be like a death or anything like that, where people really, really reach out and, and, and are there for you. It was like lovely. Like, I can't really explain what it feels like but you feel the love massively.

Nick Papastamatis  58:04  
Wow. And I think when it comes to that process of that day that you found out, because you would have had that moment of uncertainty between the scan and then that phone call. And then although that was more answers, that would have probably made you even more uncertain. So then going from that phone call, how long was that process between the MRI and then the actual diagnosis? How long did that take?

Alessio Angelucci  58:39  
The the actual diagnosis was probably a month and a half later. And it was like I would find something out and then that would be like oh no, it's not that I would find something out. Oh, no, it's not that like the initial diagnosis was a Miosarcoma. Yep. So muscle. Yeah, cancer muscle. And then they were like, Oh, no, looks like an osteosarcoma cancer of the bone. He said it was like crunchy and consistency. I remember actually after the second biopsy, because they couldn't find anything in the first one that was conclusive. The doctor was like, Look, it's it's treatable, but it's not curable, there. And I was I remember saying to him like, Am I gonna be able to sort of do what I do anymore? He was like, honestly, I don't think so. At this point it's sort of looking like like they needed to almost put like a prosthetic pelvis in so whether that meant I would lose my leg and he mentioned like the fact that they would have to like, do some pretty drastic surgery to get rid of it. And I was like, fuck man, like got sort of, I don't think I can actually deal with that, to be honest. And I don't know how I would have dealt with that. But at least I don't have to think about it. They ended up doing another biopsy, that was a bit more conclusive. They found more cancer in my chest and in my neck, which gave them the inkling that it could have been something to do with the lymph nodes. And that led them to believe that it was Hodgkin's lymphoma, which was like a fucking blessing in in the scheme of things. From that point, when we when we actually got told that it was Hodgkin's, it felt like I was already better. So to would be honest?

Nick Papastamatis  1:00:42  
So the actual, the final diagnosis was Hodgkin's. Right. So then what was the diag? What was the...What's this finding in the hip then? Was that an extention of that?

Alessio Angelucci  1:00:51  
Yeah, so that was essentially the secondary though the stuff in the neck. I mean, Hodgkin's typically turns up in the lymph nodes, like in the neck and the chest. So they think that it was there for so long that it had gone secondary into the hip. So essentially, that was like a stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma, which is very different to stage four breast cancer or Yes, stage four, whatever. Because it typically doesn't show in that secondary form

Jac Simmonds  1:01:23  
yeah. So Hodgkin's lymphoma with secondary bone cancer. Was that the final? 

Alessio Angelucci  1:01:27  
No, I don't think bone cancer. I think it was the Hodgkins lymphoma that showed up in a secondary aka area location. Okay. Yes. Yeah.

Nick Papastamatis  1:01:36  
So those cells have spread through, right and into an affecting other cells.

Alessio Angelucci  1:01:44  
Okay, because Hodgkin's is a blood cancer, right? 

Nick Papastamatis  1:01:46  
So yeah, so in other words, those cells start to multiply and infiltrate in through the muscle, okay? Because they proliferate at a rate that's uncontrollable, and they don't assimilate with any of the other other tissues. So he could have completely normal pelvis and a completely normal glute. And by the way, I'm a fucking chiropractor. Remember that? So in case I'm wrong, but you could have completely normal anatomy, but you can have these cells proliferate around it, because it's an extension of those proliferating proliferative cells, okay. In a location that has nothing to do with Hodgkin's lymphoma, so then you treat it as Hodgkin's lymphoma. And it treats the whole thing.

Jac Simmonds  1:02:36  
Right, what was your treatment?

Alessio Angelucci  1:02:38  
So literally from from the day that they diagnosed me with Hodgkin's? They were like, listen like where they hadn't I don't think they deal with with like a stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma very often, because it was almost like, let's fucking treat this thing like aggressively. Yeah, you're a strong fit person.

Jac Simmonds  1:02:58  
Zap you.

Alessio Angelucci  1:02:59  
Let's just like go for it. So they put me on. I think the protocol was elevated B cot. Do you remember it escalated or elevated B cot? It was basically...

Nick Papastamatis  1:03:11  
what's B cot? Is that a type of chemo? 

Alessio Angelucci  1:03:13  
It's, it's Yeah, it's a type of chemo. So there's all these different variations and concoctions that they would come up with. But there's like different drugs like bleomycin that affect your lungs like this, I guess a bunch of other things that that affect different areas. But it was started on the day that I got diagnosed, it was three days on, one day off, one day on, so it was like intravenous all of it. So you go in, put your canula in sit there for maybe like depending on the on the treatment was like one to four or five hours. And that just continually bring in like sort of new drips and different concoctions or whatever it was. Amy or one of my parents or one of my friends or whatever would have been there with me most of the time. So it was kind of nice. It was sort of a chance to sort of chill. Yeah, obviously feel like reasonably sick but at that time...

Nick Papastamatis  1:04:15  
Were you affected much in terms of.... 

Alessio Angelucci  1:04:18  
I think I was honestly I don't think I let myself think that I was but I think that when I think back into it I think I was reasonably sick. If I look at photos I look like uncle fester.

Nick Papastamatis  1:04:32  
I saw you with a few photos of you You had no eyebrows and shit.

Alessio Angelucci  1:04:37  
Yeah, yeah, I was like shocking.... 

Nick Papastamatis  1:04:38  
and now that you say uncle fester, just a really tall jacked version.

Alessio Angelucci  1:04:46  
yeah, but the funny thing is like they put you on all these corticosteroids and what I was...

Jac Simmonds  1:04:54  
for me voltaren.

Alessio Angelucci  1:04:55  
Oh my god. What was what's that stuff called? Anyway, it's like a, whatever a corticosteroid they gave me. prednisone, prednisone. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And my body felt like amazing. I feel good. Like mentally Superman, stupid boy. Like, just like, scat always. But physically, like the strongest that I think that I've ever felt in my life. So this is basically Superman pills... like Superman pills.

Jac Simmonds  1:05:26  
So you were training through your chemo at this point?

Alessio Angelucci  1:05:28  
Yeah, yeah. So there was like there was, which is, which is very strange, I would say but like, there was times when I would go chemo, drive home, go to CrossFit athletic do some cleans. Like cuz I was, I was at that point. I was like, Fuck, if it's Hodgkins lymphoma and I can beat it, then I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing. You know what I mean?

Jac Simmonds  1:05:52  
Did they advise you against that? Or were they..

Alessio Angelucci  1:05:54  
He said, train. 

Jac Simmonds  1:05:55  
But your definition of train.

Alessio Angelucci  1:05:58  
...doing you know, like, yes, it's very different. I don't think even normal people, I guess, understand what we do on a regular basis, you know? Yeah.

Jac Simmonds  1:06:06  
I like how you said we there. Like me, and Nick is somewhat athletes.

Alessio Angelucci  1:06:13  
I'd go like sometimes from chemo, to training, and you'd almost feel better doing that than letting everything sort of settle in, and then going to training like the next day or something, because you'd might feel a little bit a little bit shitty the next day. I sort of played around with different ways of making myself feel better mentally, like there's obviously like, CBDs, THC, all those all those different things to help you settle. And not overthink? Because I think that the chemos sort of fucked with you...

Jac Simmonds  1:06:50  
Did that play a big role in your recovery?

Alessio Angelucci  1:06:51  
Yeah, yeah, I think so.

Nick Papastamatis  1:06:54  
How did that help you?

Alessio Angelucci  1:06:55  
You go, you go in and out of, of positive and negative thought processes. And I think that, I guess, weed for me, in general, has always been something that made me think positively about everything. Okay. You know, I think that it made it had a had a really good relationship with, with everything that was was really fun in my life up until then. So if I was ever feeling like super nauseous, or whatever, I had this little vape that was like, there all the time. And I would just suck on the vape. And I would just be sitting there and and start to get productive and start to like, write things down, start to write a diary. I did my little blog that was just talking about everything in the process. And I think that that was a massive, massive help. I actually don't think about it that often. But that that writing was was a big part of it.

Nick Papastamatis  1:07:55  
yeah, yeah. The, so it helps you with your nausia sound like and it also helps you calibrate your mental state?

Alessio Angelucci  1:08:03  
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Just it just took your mind off off everything.

Nick Papastamatis  1:08:08  
Did you tell? Did you tell your doctors and oncologists about it? 

Alessio Angelucci  1:08:12  
Yeah, I kind of, I kind of I tried to get a little bit out of him. I was like, so is there any, like trial marijuana thing that you're gonna be doing? You got any plants? And it wasn't until really recently that they started doing that. I was gonna be the guinea pig, my wife and I were like we can get something out of this. Yeah, but it wasn't at that point yet. Like, I think it is very much at that point now. And in a way it was would have been cool to like maybe do it a couple of years later, but they weren't they weren't quite there yet. But they said definitely, he's had some positive feedback from it. If you if you need to, don't worry about smoking a joint here and there. Like it's not going to affect you negatively. If anything, it will help you to relax a little bit more and help with the nausea.

Nick Papastamatis  1:08:15  
So they are pretty open to it?

Alessio Angelucci  1:09:03  
Like they were they were completely fine with it. Like I think in the scheme of things. That's such a small part of it. So I don't think that they worry too much about it more. So making sure that your nutrition is on point. Yeah. Especially because you're going through so many I guess different emotions, you just don't really feel like eating a lot. You don't feel like you're used to eating the same things that you really liked before. Like I was always craving like raw meat. Like I would have dreams about going hunting and fucking eating in like a like a live deer. Like it was the weirdest thing ever. Like I would. I would crave biltong all the time. No, no. like yeah, it was like, there was a there was a show on Netflix at the time and it was all about these guys going there. Like lived in Alaska or something? And they would, they would hunt for their food. And I was like, fuck Ames, I really want to go and fucking hunt for my food. And I was like gone through this weird period. Fascinating. Yeah, weird.

Nick Papastamatis  1:10:10  
So you've liked it so far, it sounds like you've been through like, it sounds like you just basically gone into action mode. Going into action mode was kind of like you skipped. Like, you didn't really have a chance to sort of sit there and worry too much about it. You just had to do it. Yes. But like, what was some of the? Was it any like, what sort of support Did you like? What was Ames like, throughout this process?

Alessio Angelucci  1:10:36  
Insane. Like, I was always gonna be, I was dubious, I was like, fuck Ames, like, you're gonna be able to, like, be selfless enough. And I know that this sounds weird, but like, you're gonna be selfless enough and patient enough with me when I'm feeling like shitty, you know, like, well, I don't, I don't know, if I could do it myself. If Ames was sick, I'm not sure if I could be as good as Ames was to me, you know. But she was amazing. Everyone was like, super supportive, you know, like, there was obviously the rarity where people. And I find that I see it quite often, where people don't actually know how to react. Yeah. And it's the same with death, it's the same with people who are chronically sick. People don't know what to do to help you. And in that sense, they pull back. And it's probably the fear of saying the wrong thing. Exactly. And, and in fear of, like, doing the wrong thing there. Like, some people just didn't even speak to me the whole time, you know, and I was like, some, some really close people to me would have would have pulled back and, and sort of waited till it was all gone to really ask me anything, you know. And then there's the people that are like, if you need anything, just let me know, you know, but who the fuck is gonna let you know if they need anything? You know? Well, that's true. It's, it's the people that come to your house, and they bring you food and they, and they sort of go out of their way to do the little things that that really, really, you appreciate in the end. Because the ones that were like, if you ever need anything, just let me know. You're like, Okay, cool. That's like, it's almost just tick the box sort of thing. You know what I mean? And that's made me change my way of thinking is like, you know what, let's go grab a coffee, and let's have a fucking conversation. And that's happened millions, not millions of times. But like, heaps of time since I've been sick. There's people that have heard that I had cancer, that I've been through it all. And it's like, Hey, what's your perspective on it? And I immediately just be like, Let's catch up, you know, because if you've done it, it's like, you're not actually helping. I can say whatever you want, but unless you actually experienced it with them, and you're like, really take the time to, to sort of delve deep into it. Are you really helping? You know?

Jac Simmonds  1:12:53  
Yeah, that makes sense. And I don't know that people. It might be that people's intentions are in the right place as well. Definitely.

Alessio Angelucci  1:12:59  
Definitely in the right place.

Jac Simmonds  1:13:00  
But yeah, like having you having gone through that and having the first hand experience that's really interesting. Like, it's more about the practicality of how you can help versus the the courtesy, I guess that

Nick Papastamatis  1:13:10  
Were there times where you really, like, were there times where there's some dark times throughout this process?

Alessio Angelucci  1:13:17  
Yeah, definitely. I think that was a lot more to do with the uncertainty. I think the fear of not being able to do what I normally do was was the biggest thing. Once I got over that, the rest was pretty much like, I want to go to the CrossFit Games. And it was like, I'm gonna do anything that I can to go to the CrossFit Games. As soon as I found out that treatment could work. And I didn't have to get surgery. I didn't have to, like, have a prosthetic hip or leg or anything like that. It was like on, you know, and because of some of the treatments, I wasn't able to do as much as I wanted to do aerobically, because there's a, like a drug called bleomycin. It, like, affects your lungs and the capacity to, I guess, move red blood cells around the body and all that sort of stuff. It could be wrong, but it sounds right. Yeah. I wasn't able to do that. So it took a little bit to get that back at the end. But honestly, that drive just, it was it was enough for me, you know, and having the support from everyone and I say that it's like that, and I feel bad for saying it. But like, all that stuff about people wanting to help but not really doing anything. Like it's still very much appreciated. Like I fuckin that's, that's what got me through it all, you know, no matter how much you helped me, or how much you contacted me anything, drove the shit out of me to do to be what I am now. You know, other people. Yeah. Yeah, like it. It really was. It was the support that like that got me through it. It's awesome. It's warm. warm feelings.

Jac Simmonds  1:15:01  
So if we fast forward into some some good times as well if we could talk on maybe like, you know, remission and also, you know, you training towards the CrossFit Games.

Alessio Angelucci  1:15:12  
Okay, so...

Nick Papastamatis  1:15:14  
What was the feeling like? Like, what how did you finally get told that you're cancer free? Like how long did this take?

Alessio Angelucci  1:15:20  
Honestly, the weirdest thing like finished chemo in January Yeah, sorry, not January, November started radiation through the whole of December so did a month of radiation. So radiation was like an everyday thing. So you just went in got radiation left. very tiring process. I think that was the most tired that I've ever been through that whole thing. From there we had a scan obviously have like a million PET scans throughout the whole process that that found after chemo that there wasn't very much left of the cancer. So that was like a really cool Yeah, thing for me and going into radiation knowing that this radiation would definitely kill it was was sort of the icing on the cake. From there we went and had a PET scan. So we finished radiation on Christmas Eve had a PET scan, I think between Christmas Eve and between Christmas and New Year. Got the results, literally the doctor was like so nonchalant about it. He was just like, yeah, it's so gone.

Jac Simmonds  1:16:30  
From that bit of radiation?

Alessio Angelucci  1:16:32  
Yeah. Like, there's this. I think they're so desensitized to it. Doctors that I think they struggle to show, like that much emotion. I don't know if

Jac Simmonds  1:16:43  
They are IQ driven people aswell.

Nick Papastamatis  1:16:45  
you know, I'm sure it depends on depends on who you've got. Yeah. 

Alessio Angelucci  1:16:49  
Yeah, it wasn't like ring a fucking bell and like, yeah, cancer free. It was like, yeah, it's all gone. Ames and I sort of just looked at each other. I'm like, Okay, all right. Well, you know, got a hotel room and the city celebrated. Like, it was it was kind of like a almost like a letdown because you're just expecting this, this big celebration at the end. But you've been through so much that you're just like, okay, let's just like sit back and you almost reflect on it for the next month. You're like, it takes you a while like once you. Same thing. If you win a Grand Final if you if you do something huge in your life, you don't really reflect on it till maybe like a month later. Yeah. Wow, when you really got a chance to think about how much you went through.

Nick Papastamatis  1:17:33  
So this is now two years ago? Well, it would have finished two years ago, three years ago.

Alessio Angelucci  1:17:38  
Yeah, the games was 2018. So that was December 2017. That we that we finished treatment. And then we started training for the games pretty much in January.

Nick Papastamatis  1:17:51  
You were pretty much training the whole time.

Alessio Angelucci  1:17:52  
Yeah, yeah. But like, I didn't know whether I'd be able to you know, that

Nick Papastamatis  1:17:55  
What was the energy level like? Were you try to burst through some serious energy dips? Yes. To be able to train? 

Alessio Angelucci  1:18:01  
Yeah, yeah, it was, it was hard. It was hard. And I think that's contributed a lot to the person that I am now when I'm on the competition floor, right. Like, if I compare the feelings that I had, then to how I feel now it's not even close, like, wow,

Nick Papastamatis  1:18:18  
So when you're tired. Last two minutes of a workout two minutes is longer than it seems?

Jac Simmonds  1:18:23  
Not as high. Yeah.

Alessio Angelucci  1:18:24  
Yeah. I think that's definitely a massive, massive attribute, I guess. 

Nick Papastamatis  1:18:29  
So what goes through your head when people complain that they are tired in a workout?

Alessio Angelucci  1:18:33  
I honestly, I find, I find it hard to empathize with people that that are in pain and are like, I guess that complain about things. Whether it be Oh, today was a hard day, or that session was really, really hard or whatever, I find it like, initially really hard to empathize. And I have to like pull myself back and be like, you know, what, not everyone's like you in a way where they where they enjoy that sort of pain and, and suffering to get to that end goal. Yes, people are normal people and like, this is a fucking huge thing for them to be able to get to the end of that workout. And I found myself getting increasingly I guess. What's a good word for it? Yeah, yeah. Like, frustrated about little problems. You know, when people told me about like little things in their life, I found myself not being empathetic enough. And that wasn't a good thing for me because I went through a stage and no one really talks about it about, I guess remission. And, and the time after cancer like the time after cancer, is so much worse than the time during cancer. You know, I think that you go through so much like self discovery during the cancer time that you completely forget who you are as a person.mI think that...

Jac Simmonds  1:20:03  
I mean, it becomes your identity a little bit.

Alessio Angelucci  1:20:05  
Yeah. Yeah, I think. And then once you once it's all gone, like, I guess people are like, Oh, he's better now. So it's like, it's done. So never happened, you know what I mean?

Nick Papastamatis  1:20:17  
And so and so what sort of struggles Have you had post, like post cancer like in remission?

Alessio Angelucci  1:20:23  
um, I guess I'm a bit resentful. As a bit more resentful. I think that I look back and think like, I was hard done by or I feel like, I gave so much to so many things. And I see nothing for like, I put all that time into baseball, I put all that time into everything. And now I'm sitting here like, post cancer and and I know that it's the wrong way to think. But all of that support is gone now. You know what I mean? And it's like, you're used to all of this, all of this love and attention and, and it sounds horrible to think and say that, but when it's gone, you're just like, Oh, fuck, now no one. You know what I mean? That's probably similar to, to life after sport. Like, you've got all this attention on you. And it's like, Fuck, he's gone through cancer. And it's

Jac Simmonds  1:21:21  
It may have brought back some of those experiences for you. Yeah. Baseball finishes. And

Alessio Angelucci  1:21:26  
yeah, and you don't know really who you are anymore. Because you've, you've identified with this person who has cancer that's going to get through cancer, once you get through cancer, then it's like, so now what.

Nick Papastamatis  1:21:37  
Yeah, so it's almost like, wow, I never really even considered this to be part of the journey. Because, you know, obviously, like you think of the journey being, you achieve the end result, everyone jumps up and celebrates, except the doctor. This is not. And then, and then after that, you just sort of like, well, all this Yeah. Like you start to identify with why they're talking to you get used to the fact that they're talking to you, and then they just disappear. Mm hmm. That makes sense.

Alessio Angelucci  1:22:10  
Yeah. 

Nick Papastamatis  1:22:10  
It's like, and that would that would be very, I would be very confused, but also completely left out and abandoned. Hmm, that's do

Alessio Angelucci  1:22:18  
you do you feel you feel abandoned. And you've almost come to terms with like, the fact that you've got cancer now. And that's your life. And it was, it was when we first got out our scan that said I was that said I was all clear. I was kind of like, sad, in a way. Because I was like, Oh, fuck, now what now? What do I identify as right? I was I was so happy not thinking about anything, but surviving that. I like, sort of didn't know what to do now.

Jac Simmonds  1:22:28  
It was Yeah, he didn't have a goal.

Alessio Angelucci  1:22:52  
You know, not just now I've got to find a new goal...

Jac Simmonds  1:22:55  
Goal achieved. Yeah.

Nick Papastamatis  1:22:58  
Which is fucking strange. That is that is like it's very counterintuitive that I'm actually grappling with it right now.

Jac Simmonds  1:23:04  
I can, I can understand it. And I think you're right. I think the perfect analogy there is people post sports, like it sounds like you've been through it before with baseball, you identified as a baseball or a pitcher. And then it was all of a sudden gone. Like a similar story with with cancer, I guess, you know, yeah.

Alessio Angelucci  1:23:19  
Cuz you're because your mot.. like, You're, you're motivating people, and you're inspiring people. And it's all the same feelings, right? You're inspiring people. As a sportsman, you're inspiring people. The way that you're getting through cancer, the way that you'll that you're handling it not always made sure that I that I never showed that I was struggling. And for that reason, I think that people thought it was a semi easy journey, because I never wanted to actually show it. But it almost like always got to the end. And I was like, Fuck, I wish I showed that it was like, a little bit harder. Because it was really, it was really quite a tough experience. 

Jac Simmonds  1:23:21  
You know, I can understand that.

Nick Papastamatis  1:23:58  
Yeah, it's almost like it's almost like there's this self categorization of like, your self evaluating all the time based on what other people identify you as, hmm. So it's almost like, I'm categorizing myself as a cancer sufferer because this is what everyone else is looking at me as I'm therefore achieving x y, z inspiring. I'm, you know, empowering. They're like, are in awer of me. But then as soon as that changes and shifts that self categorization of how I'm interpreting myself and what I mean to other people, and what other people think of me, has changed completely. So what do they think now? Now, what am I supposed to think now? And what and who's it in relation to?

Alessio Angelucci  1:24:44  
Definitely makes sense. Like, that's honestly probably the first time it's made sense in that way. To me. That makes that makes a lot of sense.

Nick Papastamatis  1:24:54  
It's a thing called social identity theory. Okay, and self categorization is part of that. But That's a that's fascinating, huh? So after sorry, after the cancer... like into this now, this self this now psychological, let's go. So when it comes to then the gap between so how keen were you to get into CrossFit then because you would have then been searching for belonging?

Alessio Angelucci  1:25:24  
Yes, I like was willing to do anything like I was putting in like, a fucking shitload of work to make sure that like, I was so naive at that time as well. I was like, Fuck, I'm gonna be rich froning you know, and I think that a lot of crossfitters go through that and they're like, they pick it up, they start to like, have fast results. And you're like, fuck if I keep progressing at this at this right? I'm gonna be for sure, Matt Fraser the fittest person. Yeah, well, you know, and you don't? Yeah, but in hindsight you like so long ago. But what you forget is that as you get better, they're just gonna continue to get better.

Nick Papastamatis  1:26:05  
It's a sport of time.

Alessio Angelucci  1:26:06  
Yeah, exactly. And I just sort of, I guess I took that took that sadness of it being over and applied it to, okay, fuck this now I'm gonna go to the games, you know. And it was very competitive at CrossFit athletic at the time to get into the team. And it was like, between Presto and I, who would be on the team. And to be honest, I think he was he was the better crossfitter at the time. Which sucks for me to say, but like, I think I had shown at that time that I was willing to put everything on the line to get get it done. Yeah. And I think that that was more important. That goes back to like, coaches looking at someone's ability to really just dig deep. You know, rather than looking at their, at the skill level,.

Jac Simmonds  1:27:02  
and he sounds something that you could apply yourself. 100%

Alessio Angelucci  1:27:05  
Yeah, yeah, no matter what, I was gonna fucking kill myself to win. You know, it was like, 

Jac Simmonds  1:27:10  
but you might not have had tht in baseball,

Alessio Angelucci  1:27:12  
not sort of mentality. I couldn't. I couldn't.

Nick Papastamatis  1:27:14  
It was like, it was like he hadn't gone through cancer yet.

Alessio Angelucci  1:27:18  
No, like, there was nothing in baseball or in any other sport, that you could literally just bury yourself and be better than someone else. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's true. It's it's not necessarily because it allows you definitely allows you to do that. There's this there's so much skill acquisition, but in the end, if you have a fucking stronger mind than someone else, yes, you're gonna beat them they're gonna beat him. And if you if you if you keep at it for long enough, you're eventually going to have those skills and that mind is going to take you so much further than and all you need to do is probably think back every time you were in pain, think back to just lifting up a barbell whilst you're in the middle of chemo.

Nick Papastamatis  1:27:57  
Yeah, with Hodgkin's lymphoma. And just think about how fraking tired you were then it's like, shut up.

Alessio Angelucci  1:28:03  
Like if you saw me run 100 meters when I was when I was cheering came out. You would probably understand why running 100 meters now is a fucking dream. Yeah, it's like he

Nick Papastamatis  1:28:12  
would have looked like a tall uncle fester.

Alessio Angelucci  1:28:16  
I was in the car looking at the footage of it before actually it was just me like leaning forward we were in Noosa and I was training and I was just like leaning forward trying to like run and like out of breath like literally just moving one foot in front of the other was like

Nick Papastamatis  1:28:29  
just stopping us from falling over.

Alessio Angelucci  1:28:30  
pain, lungs burning.

Jac Simmonds  1:28:33  
But um Wow That just means a bit more to you when you're able to do things like that.

Alessio Angelucci  1:28:36  
Yeah, yeah. To the games?

Nick Papastamatis  1:28:40  
yeah, buddy.

Alessio Angelucci  1:28:43  
That whole process was the best the best thing I've ever done easily Wow. You know like from from doing the open in March was it Yeah, so like fuck two months after chemo, wasn't my best open result but thankfully the team had a really good result so like as a collective CrossFit athletic sort of qualified for for the regionals. I had to sort of fight for my spot at regionals with with Presto which was probably what what drove me to be so good in the first place. regionals was insane, like surreal came fourth at regionals qualified for the games. Living on voltarens like yeah, post chemo and post radiation. The worst pain ever, like real knee pain, hip pain, just like

Nick Papastamatis  1:29:36  
normal cells have been destroyed.

Alessio Angelucci  1:29:37  
Yeah, yeah. And that's what it felt like.. and you're rebuilding them. Yeah, lungs like lungs came back reasonably quick but fuck that sucked building that fitness back up was was terrible. For that could have also been just CrossFit in general.

Nick Papastamatis  1:29:54  
Yes. Was very bad feeling in

Alessio Angelucci  1:29:56  
Yeah, like the worm, all that sort of stuff. But Like I said, like that, that that training during came I put everything into perspective and nothing was really that hard. Yeah to like compared to all of that training, you know what I mean?

Jac Simmonds  1:30:10  
Wow. And your body your body had been put through the wringer. Psychologically, you didn't Yeah, bring it for the last year, that's gonna play it play a massive part on Yeah.

Nick Papastamatis  1:30:18  
So now that you've gone to the CrossFit Games, and, you know, obviously, it's, it's, it's another thing altogether to ask how you guys win at the CrossFit Games? It's kind of like, I feel like it's actually kind of almost irrelevant, because you made it to the games. Unless you unless you podium, it's,

Alessio Angelucci  1:30:35  
it's shouldn't be irrelevant. I think that we should place more emphasis on Yes, on how you go there. Because I think that it's becoming more and more achievable. And I think with the with the new with the old structure coming back, I think it it actually is achievable. And I truly believe that we can go back to the game. Yeah. Whether it be with anyone. But honestly, for me, that was just the best thing was just going.

Nick Papastamatis  1:31:03  
So once once you've gone, you've come back. So the same question comes up again. So now what? 

Alessio Angelucci  1:31:10  
Go to the games again!

Nick Papastamatis  1:31:11  
again, again? Oh, awesome. Okay, cool. Well, you ain't going anywhere so you may as well keep going.

Alessio Angelucci  1:31:15  
I would like, Tommy and I talk about it on a daily basis. But like, We're going in the fucking games. Like we were willing to do anything to go to the games. Now.

Nick Papastamatis  1:31:26  
Yeah. So this is, this is what I find interesting, right? Like, every sport that you've played a team sport, you've had to be the Do you have a coach now? 

Alessio Angelucci  1:31:36  
We're doing mayhem at the moment.

Nick Papastamatis  1:31:39  
Okay. So it's not like, it's all like you have a coach that has to select you into your team. Right? And this is exactly and this is the thing, right? Like you're all your life, you've been hampered by your choices, the coach's choice as to whether you'll be in there or not. You know, you finally break through that barrier of being selected inside the team because of your grit and your hard work. And now you're in a position where actually now you're in control of your outcome, because it was good. You got to pick the top five. So yes, that feels good. 

Alessio Angelucci  1:32:12  
Yeah, it feels good that everything you put in, you get out. Yeah, like there's, there's no question. There's like, even when we're competing, it's like, if you're the strongest, you'll win those strength events, no matter what if you're, and I think that myself as a person is a good competitor. I think that I'm not necessarily the most skillful person. And I'm not necessarily the best athlete on the floor. But I'm willing to go that extra mile to like yet bury myself to the point where I'm going to either win, or at least leave it all out there.

Nick Papastamatis  1:32:45  
Yeah. And that's, that's exactly what you need on the on the CrossFit Games platform. 

Jac Simmonds  1:32:49  
And I think, as CrossFit because like as you go, or become more elite in CrossFit, it becomes a lot less about skill acquisition, obviously, like everyone has a certain amount of skill. Once you get to a certain point, it comes down to a lot of effort. And obviously a little bit of genetics as well. But like, you said you get out what you put in.

Nick Papastamatis  1:33:06  
I remember when I was treating there at the at the CrossFit Games, and 2015 this was when they had Murph at the individuals had Murph as the event three was hot, like extremely hot that day, and and Murph was put on, it was a 35 degree day, and Murph was at 12pm. Yeah. And there was a significant difference between the conversations and the words that the top 15 were saying, versus the bottom 30 they were the bottom 30 were complaining about their biceps, about their hands about whatever that was complaining about, legitimately, like they were sore. But no more sore than the top 15. Yeah, it comes down to your mind on that. And that's when at 2015 games, that's when I realized my manual treatment had less impact than I was hoping I probably have a 5% actually impact and probably a 95% psychological impact. It is a 100% or 90%. Mind game. You've done the work. You are strong enough, fit enough. There's obviously a physical difference between Matt Fraser Rich froning and Alessio angelucci. But

for now, about six foot

and that's because they're four foot nothing and you're yet pretty tall, jacked dominating human and it's kind of like there's physical that physical capability is much more much more than the mental capability at that at that at that arena.

Alessio Angelucci  1:34:41  
So you find like when you're in that situation, when you're at the Games, treating athletes, the most important thing is the conversation that you have with them? 

Nick Papastamatis  1:34:48  
Most definitely, most definitely it's got everything to do with downplay everything unless it's a rule out. Yeah. Yeah. Like

Alessio Angelucci  1:34:56  
I don't even I don't even like have thought that was a thing.

Jac Simmonds  1:35:00  
Like, I don't think anyone would like outside of practitioners, it's

Nick Papastamatis  1:35:04  
there are there are neurophysiological things that you can achieve with some manual therapy. But most of its most of it is the chitchat, but those little physical little word in the ear that.

Jac Simmonds  1:35:14  
The physical changes when you've got two minutes at a CrossFit event. I mean, there's gonna be very minimal, right? Like it has you said, Nicko. So

Alessio Angelucci  1:35:23  
yeah. And that makes sense. Like how, like, you probably like, see me less than anyone like I don't, I don't ever get manual treatment. I never, I never go to the physio and never go to the chiro. I honestly convinced myself that, that whatever injury or niggle that there is, it's going to get better and almost internally like start to do little things to, to move towards making that feel better. Whether it be I guess, adjusting positions, or like really just discovering your body through it. You really do.

Nick Papastamatis  1:35:57  
Like if it was if your hip pain was in fact glute pain? That's manageable. Yeah, that's sweet. For sure. You don't need it rubbed every two seconds.

Jac Simmonds  1:36:07  
Yeah. And you've probably built that awareness around your body to a point where you can identify when something needs to come see Nick and I or something like that, but and then, like build that awareness with you, buddy, but you do know how to manage to get niggles, which is built through experiences.

Nick Papastamatis  1:36:21  
I honestly think that sometimes when people come in for when people come in and need to get some treatment, the question is when do when should I come in and get treatment? When when you don't know how to apply common sense anymore? Yeah, it's like, I don't actually know what to do.

Jac Simmonds  1:36:35  
Yeah, it's like, that's coming with a problem. Yeah.

Nick Papastamatis  1:36:38  
Yeah. Not not something that I just it hurts. It hurts when a lie face down when I sleep. Well, then lie on your back, man. Yeah, it's like, it's like, it's it's pretty straightforward, common sense answer. And like, I don't like I make a lot of it. But I hear that a lot. And so if you can apply common sense to your issue then. And it's physical, like you're saying, it's gonna get better. It's not cancer. Yeah, yeah.

Jac Simmonds  1:37:04  
Yeah, sure.

Nick Papastamatis  1:37:05  
What has cancer taught you? Pause. Come back to the question. Yeah, I'll ask a different question. What is your what's your gym called? Tribe, tribe headquarters. And it's only been there for

Alessio Angelucci  1:37:28  
it's been there for five months, we got the keys six months ago. Functional Fitness gym, not a CrossFit gym, a little bit of CrossFit options, but trying to stay away from the, the CrossFit vibe. And by vibe, I mean, all of those predisposed thoughts about CrossFit and how that the whole thing is perceived. We're basically just sort of trying to get a bunch of like minded people in the same room and trying to make them better physically every day, better mentally, every day. Teach them how to move properly, how to be out of pain every day. Also, a big part of it is helping them to manage stress levels, knowing what their what their daily routine entails. And knowing that we don't necessarily need to kill them every day. Yeah, is a big thing for us. I think a lot of gyms out there are doing their clients and disservice, I'm sure by smashing by just putting together these, these programs that are designed to make you feel like you just got flogged. But they don't realize that that person just worked if I can 12 hour day, and I guess they don't realize that stress and it's not like you can't differentiate between physical stress and mental stress. It's all it's all the same thing.

Nick Papastamatis  1:38:59  
That would be the last thing I want after a big day here. Yeah.

Jac Simmonds  1:39:04  
Yeah, and I gotta back it up tomorrow.

Alessio Angelucci  1:39:08  
I guess we are really looking to change that perception of, of functional fitness and, and CrossFit and, and that it's all about going there and killing yourself yet for no real cause. Yeah,

Nick Papastamatis  1:39:22  
so you've called it tribe, tribe. And I have I hazard it I can hazard a guess why. But, but in terms of in terms of like your, the way you a lot of people were able to help and support you through sport. Whether that was your parents at the beginning, getting like getting an offer. As a college student, going to America going to eat Italy. with Amy through cancer, like all these people have supported you throughout. Not saying you haven't done anything for them. That's not what I'm saying. But the amount That an athlete consumes so that they can just do what they're good at, is disproportionate to what they can do in return. And, and so now, with all that history, how does having your own tribe make you feel? What does it mean to you?

Alessio Angelucci  1:40:19  
it, and we touched on it a little bit before, I feel like that's what you're trying to get out here. I like that

Nick Papastamatis  1:40:25  
I work in reverse.

Alessio Angelucci  1:40:28  
Basically, what I was getting at before is that if you gave me the option right now, to pick my life now, and the life that I thought I wanted that Major League Baseball, let's just put a number on it, let's say, five years in the big leagues yet, or this life right now. Yep. Regardless of whether that five years was worth $100 million or not, I would pick this life. Wow. Sometimes over 10 million times over. Like, reward is unexplainable. Like saying, like, the amount of people come into our gym, good people, like real people come into our gym on a daily basis is, is so much more rewarding than than that personal. I guess. goal being reached, you know what it feels like to win a Grand Final, you win the grand final. It's like, awesome. wake up the next day. Now what? Yeah, this is an ongoing thing that's gonna be in my life forever. And I'm fine. And I just like, I can't even believe and I can't even fathom and we look at each other across the room, Tommy and I, on a daily basis, and we're like, What the fuck is going on? Yeah, that's like, it's that amazing. And it's that it's that important to us to keep doing what we're doing? Because we have an identity without it being selfish.

Jac Simmonds  1:42:01  
Yeah. Yes. If that makes sense. I understand. Sounds like you've what fills your cup at least, I hate that saying what am I saying anyway, Well, yeah. All right, at least you get more out of now, like other people's success, a little bit more. Yeah. And personal success for sure.

Alessio Angelucci  1:42:17  
Yeah. And, and putting everything that we've learned into other people and, and doing it in a way where we can help them skip the bullshit that we had to go through to get there. Yeah, if that makes sense. Like this, so many little hacks in fitness and in life and in your mental approach to everything that I wish that I would have been told about when I was going through all that sort of stuff. Yeah. When I was an athlete, I feel like our coaches did us a disservice by not helping us mentally by not giving us all those little tiny tools that we know now. To put in the play, you know,

Nick Papastamatis  1:43:01  
it is most definitely the biggest form of contribution to be able to give back to people what you received. And whether that's a mentorship or that's an opportunity. For me, it's it's, um, it that what you're doing right now is basically leading through leading people through what you've already been through, which is exactly what a leader should be doing. So well done. It's awesome.

Jac Simmonds  1:43:31  
That's awesome. Thank you. 

Nick Papastamatis  1:43:32  
Thanks for sharing.

Jac Simmonds  1:43:34  
So I guess for everyone listening, where can people reach you? Where's tribe?

Alessio Angelucci  1:43:40  
tribe is in Brookvale. It's 218 Harbord rd. If you want to reach me, I'd prefer you just came in and spoke to me, to be honest. I think the gym sells itself. I don't need to. I didn't need to go through a hard sales pitch. I think that if you experience our classes, I think that if you I guess get along with us from the beginning. You'll enjoy your experience. You know, I think that people that have to hard sell their gym, don't believe in their product. And I think if you don't believe in your product, you can see it very quickly.

Nick Papastamatis  1:44:22  
Yeah. I love that.

Alessio Angelucci  1:44:23  
I think we believe wholeheartedly in what we have to offer. And if you want to learn something, come along.

Nick Papastamatis  1:44:31  
It's awesome, dude. Love it.

Jac Simmonds  1:44:33  
That was good.

Nick Papastamatis  1:44:34  
Thanks so much. Alessio. Appreciate it, brother.

Jac Simmonds  1:44:38  
Thanks.

Alessio Angelucci  1:44:38  
Thanks for the conversation. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai