Having Visy Park all to yourself isn’t an easy feat, but with a name like Anthony Koutoufides, it comes with the territory.
The Carlton legend strolls down the circular corridors like he never left the place, even if now, it’s for different reasons.
In a year, Koutoufides (affectionately known as Kouta) has established himself as a fitness guru, hoping to get Australia fit, one person at a time.
It’s been a long time coming for the AFL champion, who has made no secret of his struggles to find purpose outside the game.
Retiring in 2007 after battling injury, Kouta felt lost and isolated, and was finding for the first time his body wasn’t responding like it used to.
“I was never depressed as I told people, but when I reflect back on those years after I retired, I was a little bit lost,” he tells Neos Kosmos.
“I wasn’t sure, I hadn’t found a passion, I didn’t have regimented training, so maybe I was searching for something. Ill health got me in 2010, I struggled, I stopped training, I couldn’t get out of bed, it was a culmination of all those struggles.”
The support group he’d relied on in the club wasn’t there anymore, and without a daily routine to fall back on, Koutoufides struggled silently.
His family, although very supportive, couldn’t be the ones that made up his mind on what he should do.
That came through trial and error. Eventually, it was quite obvious to Koutafides that fitness was his calling.
Asking him what he would have liked to pursue if AFL was never part of the picture, he’s quite blunt.
“I’d be an athlete,” he answers immediately.
If he couldn’t be a part of that world?
“A bum maybe?” he jokes. “To be honest with you, I don’t know if I had any other dream in my life than to be a sportsperson.”
During his retirement, it was his own push to get back into fitness and nutrition that made the difference and finally got him out of bed in the morning.
“Nutrition changed my life,” he says.
“I love this with a passion, we’re hitting the community here, we’re getting incredible results and we’ve got a new family here.”
Kouta Fit Clubs aren’t your usual group fitness clubs. The four week ‘challenge’ is like a free bootcamp, with training three times a week for all levels. You
take on as much as you can, and you work by reaching achievable goals.
The group atmosphere is what keeps people coming back and what makes the hard work out feel like a walk in the park.
Participants and couple Peter and Anna Kokkolis have been coming to the club for six weeks and are amazed by the community atmosphere and the eventual results.
Of the two, Peter has actually gone on to become a health coach for the club and now helps train alongside Kouta.
“I joined up online for the four week fit challenge,” he tells Neos Kosmos.
“I got fit, I got off the McDonalds, the Coke soft drinks, all the junk food and haven’t touched it since.”
His wife Anna, despite being sceptical at first, joined in to see what all the fuss was about, and like many women in the group, hoped to drop a little weight
in the right places to fit into a dress for a special occasion.
“Everyone’s really supportive of each other. It’s not like the gym where you go and you’re on your own,” she says.
“We’re every day people, we’re not athletes.”
The atmosphere and motivation is what really changed the couple’s attitude to fitness. There’s no hiding the fact that Anna is a little sad she couldn’t motivate her husband to make the changes sooner.
“He’s made changes to his health that even I haven’t been able to make him do in over 20 years of marriage,” she says with a laugh.
Personally invested in the program, Koutoufides has poured everything into the club to make it work and in just a year, the club is on target to reach its 5,000 kg combined weight loss.
He came up with the idea touring the USA, where the group fitness phenomenon is roaring. He decided to bring it to Australia with his namesake.
As the training is free, Kouta Fit Club relies on selling shakes and teas that they believe get even better results.
“We’ve got a nutritious product that’s backed by the biggest health and nutrition company in the world,” he says.
The club is surprisingly made up of many Greek Australians, with the coaches and the participants swapping a couple of Greek motivational words during training.
As one of the most famous names in the Greek community, Koutoufides has a lot to thank for the Greek community’s support.
Getting picked for Carlton at 22, Koutoufides became a household name after he was a part of the 1995 premiership.
Little did Koutoufides know that it would be the club’s last for years.
“The pinnacle was the 1995 premiership win,” he says.
“I was only 22 years of age, probably took it for granted, because playing for a club like Carlton, it was their 16th premiership then, and I automatically thought we’d win the next year and the year after, and that never happened. We still haven’t won a premiership since then.”
It’s been hard for many AFL players to deal with the spotlight, but for Koutoufides, he’s taken a lot in his stride.
Not immune from a bad headline, the star has for the most part avoided the pitfalls many players are chastised for.
He has been a strong role model for multiculturalism and athletic prowess. Players grabbing the headlines now for all the wrong reasons still annoys Kouta, but he can see where the problems may occur.
“It’s tough for them too, they’re just kids,” he says.
“We’re taking them away from going out with their mates, saying you’ve got to be professional here, you can’t drink, you can’t do this and you’ve got to watch this and behave there.
“It’s a learning process, they make mistakes like any other young kid. If they make mistakes it’s really glorified.
“The ones that continuously have problems and create problems for themselves, that’s an issue. The ones who make a mistake or two, you’ve got to forgive
and forget and move on, as long as they learn their lesson.”
Now as a fitness coach, Koutoufides is taking on the mentoring role, and making fitness a life changing factor in many people’s lives.
Gaining the ability to cut out eating junk food or committing to a training session means people are getting away from their negative preconceived notions about themselves.
Their resilience translates to other aspects of their lives, and keeping fit feeds the mind and the body.
To join up and try the Kouta Fit club, you can call Peter Kokkolis on 0414519758 or email peter@koutafitclub.com.au. For more information on the club and
its growing locations, visit www.koutafitclubs.com.au