Ep 42 Pt. I | Pauline Pompei: Early NBA Off-Season

The number one thing that I'm doing is focusing on their health.

That's my number one priority.

I'm at this point very early on just listening.

So I'm asking the questions and I'm not really talking much.

I'm letting them tell me their perspective of how the season went.

Okay, what do I need to address during this off season? What's really important to them? What's nagging at them physically? If there's anything mental that's going on, where is everything at right now? So I'm just absorbing all of the information that they're giving me.

And the questions I'm really asking is, okay, How can I address the low hanging fruit or the big rocks in the short amount of time I may have with them? So that could be physically, mentally, or even a mixture of both.

It's typically a mixture of both, but health is the number one priority.

These guys, like you said, they're coming off of a minimum 82 game grind season if they went Post-season, obviously even longer than that.

So I'm making sure that early on we're focusing on just decompression, getting their mind off of whatever was nagging at them from the season and just focusing on their health.

So a lot of time it's systemic stress.

It's some joint pain that we're dealing with.

We're thinking about some limited range of motion.

So I'm taking down all that information.

Obviously at Exos, we're very fortunate to have our PT staff on site with us.

And so we worked very closely together once they go through a PT eval.

Okay, where's the range of motion? What's limited? What are some of the pillar prerequisites that we need to address with them for that specific athlete? And then I can start to build something out with them.

But really in the beginning, Like I said, it's just decompressing, taking note of the things that may be bothering them.

And then if they're ready to talk about, this is what I need to address.

That's what we're kind of starting with in terms of conversations.

Right.

There's a feel aspect with each athlete, right? We talked about a second and third year or even rookie versus veteran, right? They have a better understanding.

These veterans tend to have a better appreciation for kind of the ebbs and flows of off season and ramping themselves back up.

But Let's focus on the physical part.

Go ahead.