Andre De Grasse is lying on a trainer's table in sweats and bare feet, his grey Puma tuque pulled down over his ears, while chiropractor Jas Randhawa presses and pulls and stretches, manipulating his feet, twisting his hips.
Canada's sprinting star arrived at Paradise Valley Community College moments earlier for practice and made a beeline for the table. De Grasse doesn't run a single step until Randhawa has worked his magic.
Exactly six months out from the Rio Olympics — and five months removed from an insanely gruelling season — life is all about getting healthy and staying healthy for the young sprinter.
"He came in a little bit dinged," said coach Stuart McMillan. "He had a lot of aches and pains ... no injuries, just little niggles. So the first month, we've tried to de-load him a little bit and get him a little bit healthier, feeling a little bit better. He's starting to come around now."
Coming off a spectacular season that saw him win double gold at both the NCAA championships and Pan American Games and bronze in the 100 metres at the world championships, the 21-year-old from Markham, Ont., upended his training environment in late December. He left the University of Southern California to work with McMillan and ALTIS — formerly the World Athletic Center — in Phoenix.
"I took a visit out here before I came and talked to Stu, talked to (coach Kevin) Tyler, talked about their methods and what they're hoping for me for the future, and I really liked the presentation and all," De Grasse said Thursday. "So I said 'I think this is a really good choice for me to come here and get better,' because I knew it was going to be hard in a college atmosphere."
Busy season
De Grasse, who will be one of Canada's top stars in Rio, opted to forgo his final season of NCAA eligibility and turned pro in early December.
He raced an extraordinary 54 times last season.
"Half of that would be a lot," said McMillan, a Canadian who has coached more than 50 Olympians, both summer and winter. "Normally if you ask a sprinter how many races they want before they're going into a championship, it would be between eight and 12. His 30th race was his NCAA 100 final. Twenty-four races later, he was clearly exhausted.
"It was unbelievable he was able to run that fast [at the world championships in Beijing]. He's got something [special], there's no doubt."
The world 100 final was race No. 52. Races 53 and 54 were the heats and finals of the 4x100 relay, in which Canada won bronze.
"He took four weeks off and got back into pretty intense training with not a lot of therapeutic input," McMillan said. "He's one of the most powerful human beings on the planet, so when you have somebody who's that powerful, and you load him that consistently over time without much therapy, the body is going to take a bit of a beating."
ALTIS is home to 107 athletes from some 30 countries, including about a dozen Canadians. Long jumper Christabel Nettey and sprinters Justyn Warner, Akeem Haynes, Tremaine Harris, Dontae Richards-Kwok and Shai-Anne Davis all train at ALTIS.
Legendary American coach Dan Pfaff, who guided Canada's Donovan Bailey to 100-metre gold at the Atlanta Olympics, is the ALTIS head coach.
"It's always fragile when you change coach in an Olympic year, especially change coach in the middle of an Olympic year," Pfaff said. "But [De Grasse] is a really smart guy, clever, and he communicates really well, so I don't see problems."
De Grasse says he's happy in his new home, which sits in the shadow of Camelback Mountain. Giant cacti stand guard like sentinels.
His apartment is a 20-minute drive from the track, and with a new Honda Accord — his first major purchase after signing his historic $11.25-million US deal with Puma — he plays taxi for many of his teammates.
Down time might be a movie or a Sunday night dinner.
Still 'very naive in the sport'
It's been a steep learning curve, however. With just one season in an elite-level program at USC, McMillan calls De Grasse "very naive in the sport." It's perhaps most noticeable in the weight room, where a lifting coach carefully monitors his every movement.
"Last year was my first year at USC, so I didn't really do much lifting, but now I'm here, it's a whole new program, lifting three times a week, it's pretty different, learning new techniques," De Grasse said. "But I actually like it, I feel I'm getting stronger from it. So overall it's going well."
Being pushed on a daily basis by world-class training partners is also something new. Last year, he trained with USC Trojans teammate BeeJay Lee, who's also now with ALTIS.
Now, he lines up against the likes of Hua Wilfried Koffi of Ivory Coast, the African champion in the 100 and 200 metres, and South African Anaso Jobodwana, the world bronze medallist in the 200 metres.
"Before it was just me and BeeJay, and now we're training with guys who are just as fast as us or that push us every day," De Grasse said. "It's really good for us competitively, because before you never really knew where you were at in practice. Now you can kind of tell, if you're with your training partner or you're near him during a rep, you know you're in a pretty good shape."
De Grasse became just the third Canadian to break the 10-second barrier in the 100 metres last season, after Bailey and Bruny Surin. (Convicted doper Ben Johnson's times have been erased from the record books). De Grasse dipped under that mark a remarkable six times last season.
He has lofty ambitions for this year.
"One of my goals is to break the Canadian record of 9.84 (co-held by Bailey and Surin), then better my Canadian record in the 200 metres as well. Those are the two top goals right now," he said. "And then when I get to the Olympics, if I think about last year and just try to make the finals, and then go from there, I think everything is going to come into play."
De Grasse will race indoors in the 60 metres at the Millrose Games on Feb. 20 in New York.
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