Patrick Mahomes says Chiefs have started ‘virtual OTAs’ and he’s built an in-home gym
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was interviewed by ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit on an Instagram story Wednesday night, and things got off to a rocky start.
Herbstreit accidentally flipped the view his camera and needed help from his kids to turn it back to selfie mode. But once things were figured out, the two had a good chat, covering a number of topics.
Herbstreit asked what Mahomes was doing these days, and Mahomes said organized team activities (OTAs) had started. The Chiefs can’t get together because of the coronavirus pandemic, but there have been some meetings.
“We actually just started with the virtual OTAs, so getting to meet with the offense and mostly with the quarterbacks,” Mahomes said. “It’s good to ... get to talk football and keep your mind busy and try to stay with where you’re at and keep trying to get better every single day.”
Herbstreit asked what Mahomes was doing to stay in shape and if he was getting help from his girlfriend, Brittany Matthews, who is a trainer.
Mahomes has found a way to do work at home.
“I kind of had to build a weight room,” Mahomes said. “We didn’t have a weight room in the house yet, so we went out and got dumbbells. We actually got a barbell now and free weights. I’ve had to do these workouts at the house in the kind of a spare room.
“Like you said, Brittany is a trainer, so she keeps me going, and she’s able to get the best out of me even when I didn’t necessarily know how to work out at the house. So a lot of high reps. I’m the guy that’s usually the heavy and low-rep guy, but she’s making me do a lot of sets of 20 and stuff like that. And that’s been the main thing.”
With no access to a track or a gym, Mahomes has done what others have during the pandemic: running on the streets around his home.
However, he’s tried to be low-key about it.
“I’ve been the guy running around the neighborhood just like everybody else, and in Texas we’re kind of in a sort of shelter-in-place type thing,” Mahomes said. “But you’re still able to kind of run around the neighborhood as long as you kind of keep a safe distance from people and so I’ve been able to do that. Running, kind of keeping the hood on, trying to stay as low-key as possible. Just getting as much in as possible. It is different, but you have to find a way to do it if you want to keep trying to go out there and win football games in the end.”
