Meet Marco Nunez
Nunez currently consults with Strive Performance, a sports science wearable technological gear that allows to monitor an athlete’s mechanical load, muscular balance and heart rate during training, practice and games to help decrease the risk of injury and monitor athletes’ progression. His role as a high performance athletic trainer is to develop preventive assessment protocols, monitor athlete’s workload and develop a continuous education program for athletic trainers, physical therapist and performance coaches. In addition, he is also the performance athletic trainer for Game Changing Films, a film company that choreographies sports scenes during movies and television shows. He is responsible for all the medical needs and providing care to actors’ athletes’ and stunt-individuals’ during filming sessions.
Nunez, spent 3 seasons, 2016-2019, as the head athletic trainer for the Los Angeles Lakers. His responsibilities included working hand-in-hand with the training staff, strength & conditioning staff, coaching staff, and front office to ensure the highest level of on-court performance. The Los Angeles native was in charged with year-round oversight of the care, prevention, and treatment of injuries to the players on the roster and was also chiefly responsible for player rehabilitation programs and emergency on-court procedures. Furthermore, during his time as head athletic trainer, he upgraded the sports science aspect of the training room by implementing sweat analysis testing, movement analysis monitoring and customized recovery programs via force plate testing and monitoring.
Prior to being promoted to Head Athletic Trainer for the Los Angeles Lakers, He spent 8 years as the assistant athletic trainer and assistant strength and conditioning specialist for the team. He was an integral part of the sports medicine staff in helping to win NBA championships in his first two seasons with the Lakers (2009 and 2010),
Nunez also served as the Head Athletic Trainer for the 2018 NBA All-Star Game and as Assistant Athletic Trainer for the 2011 NBA All-Star Game in Los Angeles.
Prior to joining the Lakers, Nuñez spent two seasons as Head Athletic Trainer for the Lakers’ NBA D-League affiliate, the Los Angeles D-Fenders, (now named the South Bay Lakers) beginning with their inaugural season in 2006-07. While working in the D-League, Nuñez served simultaneously as Head Athletic Trainer for the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks, and was solely affiliated with the Sparks for the 2005-06 season. An Assistant Athletic Trainer for the Los Angeles Avengers of the Arena Football League from 1999-2003, he also spent one season as Head Athletic Trainer for the Carolina Cobras of the AFL in 2004 prior to joining the Sparks.
In the summer and fall of that same year, Nuñez worked as an athletic trainer for the movie “The Longest Yard,” attending to the actors, stuntmen, and athletes on set. He graduated from Cal Poly Pomona with a B.S. in Kinesiology and emphasis in Sports Medicine, and went on to receive his M.S. in Biomechanics from A.T. Still University. In addition, he is an NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, and holds Corrective Exercise Specialist and Performance Enhancement Specialist certifications from the NASM.
