Ability to strengthen is Alosi's strong suit

He's the guy most of the Jets' players love to hate, a person many of them despise working with.

It's not because they think Sal Alosi is a bad person, not by any stretch. See, Alosi is just like that gym teacher who pushed you through the shuttle test during the old presidential physical fitness routine, knowing he's racking up more enemies than allies as every muscle in your body aches, begging to be allowed to stop.

"My job is to pull the best out of them every day," Alosi said. "I know these guys just as good as they know themselves, maybe better sometimes, because I deal with them all the year 'round. So I know who feels good, who doesn't feel good. My job is to get to know the ins and outs of each one of these players and to push their buttons and to get the best out of them."

Alosi, who played football at Massapequa High for three years and linebacker at Hofstra from 1996-2001, is in his third season as the Jets' head strength and conditioning coach. Although he's under the radar, the 32-year-old has some of the staff's most important responsibilities thanks to many of his tasks.

He's the leader of the Jets' yearlong athletic-based strength program and helps devise individual workout regimens to try to increase a player's relative strength, which is how strong they are in comparison with their body weight. He also oversees the nutritional side, whether it's helping to come up with the cafeteria menus in the team's training facility in Florham Park, N.J., the food served on team charter flights or pre-game meals at team hotels.

Essentially, he's in charge of making sure the players are taking care of themselves properly since "these guys get into about 50 or 60 car accidents every Sunday," as Alosi put it.

"Sal is militant in the way that he does it, but at the same time you understand that it makes you better," Kris Jenkins said. "I think he is a real good strength coach. A little bit cocky. I mean, he went to Hofstra, so you know where that comes from. That's the only negative I give him - he went to Hofstra."

When Alosi's Hofstra playing days were over, the Jets offered him a free-agent tryout in 2001. Bob Sutton, then the linebackers coach, worked him out. But Alosi could tell there wasn't much interest in him as a player.

"It wasn't like, 'Hey, we'd love to bring you into minicamp,' " Alosi said. "It was more along the lines of: 'Hey, maybe we'll have an internship for you or something.' "

A year after his initial tryout, John Lott - then the Jets' strength and conditioning program coach, who's now with Arizona - offered Alosi a full-time position. Alosi spent three seasons as an assistant with the Jets before he took the head gig with the Falcons, an organization he spent only a year with before the Jets offered him their head position in 2007.

"He did this little program where I was trying to keep muscle tone on throughout the year," Jerricho Cotchery said, "and when he left, I got away from that and I was missing that. But when he came back, I was glad to see him because I know he's going to push the players."

Alosi routinely puts in 12 hours daily and his schedule stays packed even on game days. He sets up nutritional tables in the locker room, puts a group of 20 to 30 players through a voluntary pregame routine, then works out those who'll be inactive for the game. After that, it's back to the locker room to serve any individual needs a player might have.

Come opening kickoff, Alosi's job gets exponentially harder. Not for the reason you might think, though.

"It's the most thankless job on Sunday - the 'get back' guy," Alosi said. "Keeping the coaches off the sidelines, off the field, keeping the players back so the side judges have room to run up and down the white line.

"Nobody wants to listen to you. So it's like you can't win, you can't win."

In truth, Alosi is a winner at something after all - scoring his dream job.

"My career path definitely has been atypical," he said. "I've been very blessed, very fortunate. Not a day goes by where I don't realize and understand how fortunate I am. There's a lot of people out there that would love to have my job. I'm well aware of that. That's why we work as hard as we do, to make sure we are the best that we can be here."