Melbourne Demons defender Christian Salem opens up on his battle with thyroid problems and getting the ‘zip’ back

Christian Salem admits his side’s past two finals efforts have been bitterly disappointing, but says the Dees will continue to put themselves in the thick of the race until they get it right.

For Christian Salem it’s all about the zip.

The word comes up a lot as he reflects on the past two years of his football life with the general prognosis being he hasn’t had it.

While he still may have played 16 games this year and 13 in 2022, the zip wasn’t there. The last time he can remember having it was the 2021 Grand Final.

Salem got a vote in the Norm Smith Medal that night in Perth which capped off a great season that included a premiership, being named in the All-Australian squad and finishing fourth in the best and fairest.

Two knee operations the following year saw the zip disappear and just when he felt he was getting it back in the 2023 pre-season, an old enemy returned.

Christian Salem hard at work during Melbourne’s Lorne training camp. Picture: Brendan Beckett

At the start of his career Salem, had been struck down with thyroid problems and then out of the blue in February it flared again.

“It came back a week before the first practice match, I was feeling amazing,” Salem explains.

“The year before I had my knee surgeries, two of them and I didn’t really get back to my best so I went away and got myself in real good nick. I was feeling good, my confidence was back then the thyroid stuff popped up, it had been six or seven years.

“I was in hospital a few weeks before that so that might have triggered something but you pick up little signals. I realised I’d lost five kilos but when you’re doing pre-season you think that could be just water weight from the hot sessions.

“But then I wasn’t able to run out the back end of the session, I knew I wasn’t unfit so something was wrong.

“Then I’d get up off the couch and walk over to the table, come back and sit down and my heart rate would be 125 so I knew I was in trouble.

“I then had to have four weeks on the couch and I lost everything.”

An injured Salem walks off the MCG in round 1, 2022. Picture: Michael Klein

Just when he was about to return to playing, he hurt his knee which he thinks was a direct result of the thyroid problem. He’d lost all his conditioning, the knee had weakened and a piece of cartilage chipped off.

That meant more surgery with Salem not beginning his season until round 10. And it was a struggle.

“It wasn’t where I sort of wanted to be, which is a frustrating thing,” he says.

“You have your knee injuries and you come back and you don’t have your zip so you try and get a bit of confidence.

“I didn’t realise how much the thyroid stuff impacted me physically. You get your weight back but it’s not that pre-season hard weight and you’re just coming back trying to play catch-up.

“It’s so frustrating given you’ve come from such a high level. I was thinking the thyroid is done now so why aren’t I playing my best football? But that zip sort of stuff, you just don’t get it back.”

At his best, Salem plays with plenty of dash and zip. Picture: Michael Klein.

But he concedes he hasn’t felt that same since the 2021 grand final. Picture: Michael Klein

The search for the zip took him to Europe at the end of the season.

The mad Arsenal fan went with two schoolmates and followed the Gunners everywhere, from EPL games around in London to a Champion’s League fixture in Spain.

“I haven’t seen them lose yet. I went to nine games all up,” he states proudly.

But it was what Salem, 28, did at the end of the trip which has him even more excited.

He made a stop in Dubai and trained by himself for nine days.

He’d done it 12 months earlier and found it had given him an edge before his health issues hit.

“It’s good to have my own time, train hard, enjoy the weather and train again at night. Sort of hit repeat each day,” he says.

“Working with people overseas who have got different ideas, I was able to pick their brains a bit and get a different understanding of my body. I found that really helpful and enjoyable and you come back with a freshness.”

It also gave him time to reflect, not just about his own journey, but on the state of his football team who’d just gone out in straight sets from the finals for the second consecutive year.

Can he get back to his best in 2024? Picture: Brendan Beckett

“We want to put ourselves in that position over and over, you’re not going to get it right all of the time but as long as you recognise it and look to the opportunities to improve and address as well what went wrong,” he says.

“The way we went out the last couple of years is bitterly disappointing but it’s all about dealing with the pressures, dealing with the external stuff and really locking in.

“Internally we are coming in doing everything right Monday to Friday, we’ve just got to nail that final piece and away we go.”

Salem has heard all the talk about the Demons culture with the spotlight on his troubled friend, Clayton Oliver.

“Again, it is about the controllables,” he said.

“Can we control what people are saying? Not really in a way, but at the same time we have to buckle up and accept some facts, deal with them head-on and come out the other side.

“The good thing at the club is we are very united. People may not think that but internally we know what we are about and we know what we need to do. We haven’t got everything right, we’re not perfect but we are addressing what we need to address and attacking it head on.”

Attacking it with some rediscovered zip.