Pro Lacrosse Player Paul Rabil Eats Vegan and Has Mastered the Hotel Gym Workout

As it turns out, compressing an entire season of a pro sport into two weeks and one centralized location isn’t so easy.Premier Lacrosse League co-founder Paul Rabil says that in the months since COVID-19 had its first spike of cases in the United States, he regularly worked 16-hour days while attempting to salvage the PLL’s second season. The solution: The Championship Series, a two-week tournament featuring all seven PLL teams, who are currently competing in a bubble in Herriman, Utah.Rabil isn’t one to brag about the lack of sleep though, unlike so many others who measure their hard work via exhaustion. He knows it isn’t in his best interest to be running on fumes—especially since, plot twist, he plays in the PLL too, as one of the stars of the Atlas team.“I keep the perspective that this is a short-term investment to solve for something that I’m very passionate about, and that it won’t always be this way,” he says. “After our championship game on August 9, I’ll get a few weeks to exhale and take a vacation and try to recalibrate.”Rabil, 34, is a highly decorated lacrosse player—two-time NCAA champion at Johns Hopkins, two-time MVP of Major League Lacrosse, which he left (and convinced many others to leave) in favor of the newly created PLL. In an interview with GQ a day before the Championship Series began, Rabil spoke honestly about trying to maintain his workout routine and nutritional regimen while running a league and gave some details about the food offerings for PLL lacrosse players during the two-week tournament.GQ: You’ve been focused on the business side of the PLL, but you’re also a pro athlete who’s competing in this event. How have you been attempting to get some rest and eat relatively healthy?Paul Rabil: You have to create boundaries around your professional and personal life. My wheelhouse is right around eight hours of sleep. I haven’t been able to achieve that in many cases, but I get pretty close. I tend to get seven hours, and ideally will try to push myself, though the anxiety of running a business will often keep me awake once I wake up.And I think meal planning has become really useful for me. I have a subscription to a meal-based service called Fresh N’ Lean that supplements me in between the larger meals that I prepare. That has enabled me to continue eating well and eating often as a pro athlete while I’m working most of the day.You started eating vegan roughly a year ago, right?Yeah, it was a year ago. A few years back, I slipped two of my disks in my L-4 and L-5 and my S-1 [vertebrae]. It was one of the more painful injuries I’ve had in my career, just relentless and ongoing, and I’ve broken my foot twice, I’ve torn ligaments in my shoulder, and had sports hernia surgery.I did a bunch of different therapies and sought medical attention from cortisone shots, epidurals, full body scans and such. I determined that back surgery wasn’t in my best interests, medically. I landed on a spot where I w
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