COMPANIES have been attaching themselves to Patrick Cripps' brand for years, but now the dual Brownlow medallist has built his own business. It comes amid a summer reset at Carlton, as the skipper heads home to lead Western Australia against Victoria in the 2026 AAMI AFL Origin game.

The 30-year-old has always dotted his i's, crossed his t's and searched for ways to get better. Standing 195cm, the five-time John Nicholls medallist has redefined what a midfielder can do at that size. He has tweaked his weight from year to year, trying to balance his strength with the evolving demands of the game.

That attention to detail and curiosity regarding nutrition and recovery has led him down the path to launch his own business with a mindset that should not only allow him to play well into his 30s, but extend his peak longer, much like the record-bound Scott Pendlebury, and recent All-Australian veterans Dayne Zorko, Max Gawn and Jack Gunston. 

"That's what I'm going for," Cripps told AFL.com.au. "I don't want to just run around and not be able to perform. I want to extend my peak.

"If you look at any sport all over the world, even AFL, I feel like the guys that look after themselves still perform well at 35, like Gunston, All-Australian; Gawn, All-Australian; Zorko, All-Australian. They are all guys mid-30s. Obviously Pendlebury has looked after his body.

"I feel like your habits will come out, the stuff you've done early from like 25 to 30 will really start paying you back in your 30s. I feel as good as I did when I was 23, 24 but I think it's a lot of the detail of nutrition, learning, recovery, sleep methods, hydration; all the stuff that I feel like we're very lucky now as athletes. A lot of research has come out in the last sort of five to 10 years about saunas, ice baths, hyperbaric chambers, infrared light, compression boots, all this around recovery. 

"And now hydrogen is pretty new but I think it will get pretty big in the athletic performance space, especially in Australia. I've really noticed the benefit since taking it, especially this pre-season, probably the quickest I've bounced between sessions, which is just great to feel that way."

After years of planning behind the scenes, Alivia Wellness launched this month. Cripps and co-founder Andrew Macdonald have worked with Florida-based nutritionist Derek Johnson to develop hydrogen products that are HASTA certified, meaning they have been tested for more than 200 WADA-prohibited substances.  

Cripps is one of the most marketable players in the AFL. He works with Colgate, AAMI, Kayo, Telstra, AIA Vitality, Nike, Coles and My Room, among others, but this is the first time the four-time All-Australian has founded his own company.

"The whole idea is we aren't a sports brand, we are a wellness company. For me, it's around athletic performance and peak energy. I want it to be for everyone. If you want to live longer you need more energy. We want to help everyone," Cripps said.

"Hydrogen tablets are really big in the US and are starting to get traction over here. Essentially it's magnesium that you drop into water and when you consume it, it's great for energy, stress, resilience, recovery for athletes, a lot around oxidative stress, antioxidants. And then the bath tablets are just bigger versions that you drop in and you just you bathe in them, which has helped recover quicker."

Cripps has completed a degree in agriculture-business, majoring in finance, but is now studying psychology. His curiosity around marginal gains led him down this path. He started listening to the Finding Mastery podcast by high performance psychologist Dr Michael Gervais a handful of years ago and never misses an episode. 

When he was travelling in America a few years ago, he organised a coffee with Gervais in Los Angeles after being connected by a Nike coach in Oregon. That meeting connected him with Johnson, leading to Alivia. 

Now a future in mindfulness or performance coaching, like professional mentor Ben Crowe, could beckon when his playing days are over. Travis Boak has already made an impact on him since the Port Adelaide great joined the Blues as leadership and culture coach in the pre-season.

"I definitely love high-performing environments. I reckon psychology, performance, leadership, culture and then physical and mental wellness – how do you get the most out of your body? – they're probably stuff that I really enjoy," he said.

"Listening to Michael Gervais and doing his course with [NFL coaching great] Pete Carroll helped me find my passion for high performance mindset and helping people. Working with Tarah [Kavanagh] at the club and Steve [Rendall] I just love picking their brains. Same with Travis Boak now. I think in future I would like to do work in more than mindset stuff."

Cripps will captain Western Australia against Victoria on Saturday night in Origin – the first Origin clash since 1999, and the first for WA since 1998 – in a fixture he hopes the League continues to host after almost 27 years without representative football. 

"I had a good reflection the other night. Out of everyone in WA, you're the lucky one that gets to lead that team, which we're in front of a home crowd. There is a lot of pride, but also I’ve got to enjoy the responsibility to go there. We want to put on a great game that gets people interested so that people want to see it again," he said.

"It is a great honour, just playing the game for me is going to be special. We're that excited to play in a game that has a lot of meaning for us. And I think it's a lot of us. We're all pretty proud West Aussies; a lot of us will never get to play in our home state based on the national competition, so to go back there and represent our state is special."

Carlton Football Club is a very different place to this time last year. Brian Cook and Brad Lloyd have departed. Graham Wright and Chris Davies have arrived as CEO and GM of football, respectively. Michael Voss is still coaching, but there are six new assistant and development coaches in the football department at Ikon Park.

And then there is what happened last October. Charlie Curnow moved to Sydney on deadline day, after Tom De Koning and Jack Silvagni exercised their free agency rights to land at St Kilda. Corey Durdin also moved to Port Adelaide. Five new players arrived – Will Hayward, Ollie Florent, Ben Ainsworth, Liam Reidy and Campbell Chesser. The place feels different. Very different.

"It feels very fresh in a really good way. There's still a lot of stability from a lot of us having been there for a long time, so there has been change with stability, if that makes sense. In the past with Carlton, there's been a lot of change, but a lot of instability as well. I’ve loved the pre-season; there has been pure enjoyment to go to training and get after it. It's a bit of the unknown for us and that's what's exciting," he said.

"We got a lot of new guys coming from other clubs. We've had a lot of experience leave, so our teams will look very different, but also we've got a lot of guys coming back from long-term injuries that didn't play last year. Our round one side will have eight to 10 different guys that didn't play last year, which for me, is exciting, a lot of opportunities, a lot of energy."