PITTSBURGH _ The garage in sunny Southern California is hot and steamy, but Corey Calliet likes it that way. He used to call his home gym "The Box" but now it's "The Laboratory," or just "The Lab," for short. If it starts to get a little too stuffy, he'll crack open one of the doors a bit, just to let in some fresh air, then shut it.
Because this is supposed to be hard. It's supposed to be physically and mentally taxing. On the surface, it's a workout with a celebrity trainer. There's video being shot, social media stories being posted, but it's not meant to be glamorous. In fact, Calliet wants it to be the most grueling regimen you've ever been put through, maybe enough so that you question whether you even want to continue.
JuJu Smith-Schuster kept coming back.
"I was trying to break him every day," Calliet said. "That was my goal. If I can break you every day, the little stuff you do on the field that you're good at, that's going to be easy."
In many ways, Calliet is the perfect offseason trainer for Smith-Schuster. He's been featured in GQ and Men's Health and has graced the cover of Men's Fitness. If you turn on the E! network, you might see him on "Revenge Body with Khloe Kardashian." As he discusses his foray into building Smith-Schuster's NFL revenge body, a light gray tank top does little to cover a masterpiece of tattooed muscles you'd expect from a fitness guru.
But it all means Calliet is more than comfortable with Smith-Schuster's lifestyle, knowing anything you do or say might end up on YouTube. He embraces the notion that many subjects who seek him out do so because they have seen him on TV, or perused his Instagram account with almost 400,000 followers, or read about him as the man behind star actor Michael B. Jordan's chiseled physique in his "Black Panther" and "Creed" movies.
So when Calliet was in Berlin last November with Jordan filming the upcoming film "Without Remorse" and got a direct message from Smith-Schuster, he was intrigued but didn't think much of it, because that sort of thing happens a lot. Calliet had seen him play a couple times, enough to become a fan of his game and even think about how he could help a young wideout improve if he got his hands on him.
"I just loved his energy and his swagger when he played. ... That was all that I knew about him," Calliet said. "I really knew nothing at all. But I know everything now."
After a full offseason of workouts, Calliet, 35, said he views the 23-year-old Smith-Schuster like a nephew now. They've come a long way since that initial contact, which led to their first session in early January, when Calliet "busted his ass." Smith-Schuster then took a vacation to Hawaii _ "He was like, 'I'm out of here,' " Calliet laughed, but it was a scheduled trip _ and when he got back, Calliet gave him a call.
"Are you coming back?" he asked.
"I'll be there Monday," Smith-Schuster replied.
That was the green light for Calliet, who had already decided he was in on Smith-Schuster to be one of his select few one-on-one clients. He just had to find out if Smith-Schuster was ready for him.
"I just need to put you through a little bit of hell on Day 1 to see if you could last," Calliet said. "And if you can make it through Day 1, it'll go crazy."
Calliet doesn't want to give away all his secrets, but here's his general synopsis of their offseason routine: Nothing was routine.
Smith-Schuster worked out with him twice a day, six days a week, from January into early May, when he left L.A. to return to Pittsburgh. Calliet adopted the mentality that an average play for a receiver lasts eight seconds, so he wanted to put Smith-Schuster through an offseason that would allow him to return to NFL football and beat up opposing defenders over and over again for eight seconds at a time.
"I feel like the body's a machine," Calliet said. "He's already the machine. He's already a Lamborghini, he's already a Porsche. All I did was put a bigger motor in it. ... I just had to take a kid who was not as in shape, not as big, not as toned, and that's what I do, I like to create that _ the body, the physique of it _ but I also needed to give him a bigger motor."
The mornings were spent throwing weight around in the garage, an apt setting for Smith-Schuster as one of seven children who slept in the garage of his grandmother's house in the same city as a kid. The nights were spent at a football field nearby, where Calliet would put him through conditioning and footwork exercises. Calliet calls it all a mix of "bodybuilding with CrossFit with HIIT training with conditioning all at once."
"One of my friends said, 'He trained with you six times a week, twice a day? He's crazy,' " Calliet relayed. "I said, 'I know.' "
On a given day, Smith-Schuster's warm-up would start by burning a predetermined number of calories on an Assault exercise bike. He'd get off the bike and hit the ground to floor-press 75 pounds for 15-20 reps. Get up from that, do a set of skiers, then move on to box jumps, then squats, then abs. In all, it would usually last seven minutes, nonstop.
"I'm beating you up in the beginning of working out, so you're already tired as hell," Calliet explained. "That's the part where I say, 'OK, you're physically tired, but you're mentally drained. ... You've just got to keep going.' "
Despite his fame in the training world, Calliet insists he doesn't like fancy machines or cute contraptions in his garage gym. He doesn't have a white board where he writes down what you'll be doing each day, because he goes off instinct from chatting with you and feeling out your energy, "to know whether or not I'm about to kill you, or just take it easy."
For Smith-Schuster, it was all about "getting lean, losing weight, cutting up, getting faster, working on routes and stuff like that, trying to get to that next level," he told former NFL punter and Plum native Pat McAfee on his podcast Super Bowl week.
"He wanted to look good," Calliet said. "When you come to me, you want to look good. Most people that come to me, they're ready to have a transformation. They want to have abs and look ripped up. That was his goal. My goal was to get him in shape. I wanted him to get through the workouts and when he leaves, I wanted him to say, 'This workout wasn't (crap).' "
But Smith-Schuster also is at a crossroads. He's entering the final year of his rookie contract with the Steelers, and without Ben Roethlisberger, 2019 was a disappointment by the ascendant standards he set his first two campaigns, especially two seasons ago when he caught 111 passes for 1,426 yards and seven touchdowns. Compared to those numbers, 42 receptions for 552 yards and three scores is nothing short of a dud. Will he command a lucrative extension from the Steelers, or hit free agency and see what the other 31 teams might be willing to offer him on the open market?
"JuJu really wants to take that next step, too," general manager Kevin Colbert said on 105.9 The X last week. "He was trying to do that last year. ... I'm sure JuJu wants to re-establish himself as a 100-catch receiver that's one of the best in the league because, really, in 2018 he was that guy."
From a traditional media perspective, Smith-Schuster has been mostly off the grid since his interview with McAfee, when he spoke of hearing critics express sentiments about him "playing too many video games, doing too much branding stuff, too many sponsors." He's still been active on Instagram and Twitter, posting on both sites in late April: "Have a different mindset right now. Need to be the best me for my teammates, coaches, and especially the best fans in the world. Focused & working on bringing Pittsburgh another championship."
Over the past few months, his trainer has sensed the same motivation.
"Going into this year with kind of a chip on his shoulder _ understanding he's holding the team on his back, and the responsibility he has _ even though you may see him clown and have a good time, he's ready to work," Calliet said. "I think that was part of the process when he came to train with me."
Also part of the process? Recovery and nutrition. His post-breakout season was hampered by injury, especially one to his knee that caused him to miss four games, and durability was a focus of his offseason, as well. For that reason, Calliet made sure yoga and massage therapy were linked with their physical sessions, sometimes before and sometimes after.
Pepsi and Pizza Hut might pay well for endorsements, but they can't be full-time fuel for any athlete. Calliet put together a "basic diet" for his pupil, "because he'd never been on a diet before."
"I needed his body to have clean nutrients, clean fuel, so he's able to last and get the results that he wants. ... He was on a balanced meal plan," Calliet said _ except from 7 p.m. Saturday to 7 p.m. Sunday. "I did give him at least 24 hours to cheat. He needed that. He's an athlete. I don't expect him to be a bodybuilder and all that. I expect him to have energy and look good while he's playing."
Speaking of which, Calliet claims you'll notice a few differences from that "aesthetic" standpoint. A more detailed, thicker back, bigger arms, "and he actually has a chest now."
"He has abs," Calliet said. "He never had abs before _ like, never. So you'll be able to see that. The thing is, because you're an athlete and you look good like that, you're going to play good. Those muscles are going to be used as 'go' muscles."
On the topic of whether Smith-Schuster was in good shape going into last season, Calliet responds, "He was OK." Listed at 6-feet-1, 215 pounds on the Steelers roster, Smith-Schuster initially weighed in at 224 this offseason, per Calliet, but soon after they started, he dropped to 219, then added those five pounds back and "was much more lean." Calliet didn't want him to gain muscle but get slower. Based on what he observed in their nighttime conditioning sessions, Calliet sees a wideout who gained muscle, but got faster.
He admits he's not a strength and conditioning or receivers coach, at least not from a traditional sports perspective, but he has a boxing background and has been training for 16 years. Reshaping Smith-Schuster has even helped a reality TV trainer from New Orleans fall back in love with his craft.
"Something about JuJu was like _ I like the kid," Calliet said. "His energy, and just him as a person. It made me feel good. ... It went from a client to my family. I care about what he's doing, so it made the work we put in much more special, and much better.
"A big celebrity told me this, they said, 'When somebody hires you, Corey, you know they're serious.' He doesn't (do) 'football, football, football, football.' He has a life. He has a brand. But he's showing you, 'I'm working every day. I'm working every single day.' And he didn't have a problem with it. I think people were able to follow his journey (online) from being with me to actually leaving and going back to Pittsburgh."
According to Calliet, Smith-Schuster brought friends a few times to work out with them, "and they never come back," he grinned. Boujee, Smith-Schuster's beloved French bulldog, tagged along once, too, but Calliet had to put his foot down, "because Boujee don't keep still." James Conner was set to join at one point, but the COVID-19 pandemic prevented that. Calliet figures if things go well next season, "I'll have a whole Steelers football training camp downstairs."
But he isn't ready to render a final verdict on what it all will mean for No. 19 in 2020. Calliet plans to visit Pittsburgh for the first time to check out training camp, if he can, to check on his project's progress.
They'll be together for a while, he thinks, but in addition to calling Smith-Schuster and sending workouts from afar, Calliet also isn't going to let anyone "take him from doing what he was doing with me, to just doing some subpar workout." Once the real games start, he'll find out whether he did his job. He's as eager to see it as Steelers fans.
"Of course, they're going to see speed. He's fast, but he's not a lightning-fast guy. He's fast to get down the field, he has endurance. You're going to see how he separates, you're going to see a little more flexibility in him, but you're going to see conditioning," Calliet said. "You're going to see him run, finish, and come right back and do it over and over again.
"The strength? Let me just say, these little cornerbacks that are 5-9, 5-8, or whatever, I can quote this: Y'all got your hands full. I promise they're going to have their hands full."
