Rob Gronkowski shares how he ‘tricked’ Bucs conditioning coach during the offseason
"And he doesn’t have a clue to this day that I was tricking him."
Rob Gronkowski had to re-introduce himself to football in an unusual way last offseason.
After making a year off from the game, Gronkowski decided to return and join Tom Brady in Tampa Bay. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic however, Gronkowski dealt with the same issues we all did and had to work from over the spring.
Gronkowski liked the virtual workout program at first, sending videos on a daily basis to Buccaneers strength and conditioning coach Anthony Piroli to show his progress.
“Those were fun, though, at first,” Gronkowski told reporters Monday during the “Opening Night” of Super Bowl week. “Just seeing the little chart that has all the workouts on it, just doing them all, filming yourself — it was fun for, like, the first week filming yourself, sending the video in, making yourself look good. If you felt like that one wasn’t good, you were like, ‘Oh, I’m going to make myself look good so he thinks I’m doing everything.’”
The virtual training got old to Gronk quickly though. Gronkowski said he got tired of filming himself and having to send in his workout every time and wished they were able to workout in person.
So, he found a way to work around it.
“But then, I started tricking him,” Gronkowski said. “I would bring my shirt out, and then I would bring another shirt out, so when I’m running the sprints, I would film myself, like, 15 times for that session, that workout session. But I would run it in a couple different shirts — because you only had to send in, like, two or three reps — so that when the next time came, I didn’t have to film myself because I already filmed myself running in a different shirt every time on that one day.
“And he doesn’t have a clue to this day that I was tricking him about half the time during those virtual workouts.”
Cheating his way during virtual workouts may have hurt Gronk to start the season. He didn’t have a touchdown catch in the Buccaneers’ first five games. However, Gronkowski didn’t miss any games this season, making it the first time since 2011 he’s played in all 16 of his team’s regular-season games.
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