Montreal Alouettes’ quarterback Davis Alexander has been dealing with his left hamstring injury since April, but he has been able to deadlift 500 pounds despite not being 100 percent healthy.
The 27-year-old initially suffered the setback while doing curve sprints in the offseason. Alexander re-aggravated his left hamstring in the team’s 19-16 East Final win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
“I don’t really know a percentage because we’re going day one, day two, day three checklist leading up to the game. So far, I’ve been able to check everything off the boxes that we wanted,” Alexander said after a closed practice on Thursday.
“If I’m being as honest as possible, it’s gone better than I expected. I think the benefit is that I have been dealing with this all year. It’s gone better than we expected, and gotta keep trending in the right direction. Give ourselves the best opportunity to go win.”
Montreal’s training staff has been doing four to five therapy sessions per day on Alexander’s left hamstring. He’s been doing strength and activation workouts along with treatments which include massage, ice, ultrasound, laser, and electrical stimulation therapy.
“I hate STIM (stimulation therapy), but we’re seeing pretty good results with it. STIM feels like electricity in your body — pulses a lot. I’ve never liked that feeling,” Alexander said.
“In high school, they used to make me STIM my arm, and I stopped doing it my senior year because I hated it so much. It’s a weird feeling for me, but they’re saying that we’re getting good results from it, so if I can toughen up a little bit, just stick with it.”
Canadian receiver Tyson Philpot said his QB had the best practice he’s seen from him all year behind closed doors at Princess Auto Stadium in Winnipeg. Alexander said his left hamstring “felt great” following the session.
“It’s been going great, to be quite honest with you. We weren’t sure what to expect. To go out there, watch the last two practices, watch him throw it, watch him move — I don’t know that you’d be able to tell anything’s wrong with him,” head coach Jason Maas said.
“We did have a great practice that he was executing on all cylinders. I thought he did a tremendous job leading it. Excited that’s coming right on time. Having your best practices is a good thing.”
The 49-year-old Grey Cup champion Maas stated Alexander will start the 112th Grey Cup with conviction when the team arrived at James Armstrong Richardson International Airport in the Manitoba on Monday.
