Thomas Myslinski III | Highlighting the Return to Play Strength and Conditioning Coach

How can lessons from professional football help you prepare injured athletes to return to competition? Thomas Myslinski III is the Reconditioning and Return to Football Coach for the New York Jets in the National Football League (NFL). A third-generation strength and conditioning coach, Myslinski recalls the joy of tagging along at NFL training camps with his father, who encouraged him to learn beyond one specialty. He discusses workload management and how sport science helps him understand each player’s progress. Myslinski reverse engineers each player’s programming from sport demands and adjusts it to their current capacity. He describes himself and his sports medicine counterpart as “partners in everything” and explains how he keeps fellow strength and conditioning coaches informed. Looking ahead, he considers how strength coaches can match technology to training goals and plan recovery as deliberately as training. Hear what you need to know about a returning player, and what information your colleagues need you to share.

Contact Information & Episode Links:

Reach Thomas by email: myslinskitj@gmail.com and on Instagram: @thomas_myslinski45  | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs and LinkedIn: @ericmcmahoncscs

Join the NSCA Football Special Interest Group (SIG) on LinkedIn to connect with other coaches and stay current on football strength and conditioning best practices.

Thomas Myslinski III, MS, CSCS, RSCC

Thomas Myslinski III is the Reconditioning and Return to Football Coach with the New York Jets in the National Football League (NFL). Prior to joining the Jets, he gained experience across collegiate and professional sports, building expertise in strength and conditioning, speed development, and return-to-play strategies. Myslinski earned his Master’s degree from East Tennessee State University. Passionate about athlete development, he combines scientific principles with practical coaching experience to enhance performance, reduce injury risk, and prepare athletes to excel at the highest level of competition.

Show Notes:

"The first one to be is multifactorial. You know, be a Swiss army knife. [...] go learn from all the different people. That's what he instilled in me. I think that throughout my journey, it's been great to have my own mentors and then take pieces of what they've taught me and then kind of make it into the mix that we have." 5:25

"We can't guess. We have to know what's going on with them. [...] If I have a cohort of six or whatever it may be, I better know those six guys inside and out, and I better have a really good understanding of what's going on, at what time frames, having a good understanding of what they were pre-injury where are they at post injury or whatever it may be, but I have to fall back on, a lot of those learnings from [ETSU]..." 11:35

"You have to make sure everybody's on, aware of everything going on. And especially in RTP... Anything can change at a drop of a dime. So as soon as something happens it is okay. Let's communicate via whatever channel, whatever way that we do, let's make sure everybody's aware of what's going on." 15:37

Transcript:

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;23;01

Welcome to the NSCA Coaching Podcast season ten, episode eight. But the first one to be is multifactorial. You know, this Swiss army knife, like go learn. I remember when he was, in the field and he would bring in, you know, mentors of his, like, Charlie Francis, or he would be with buddy, and they'd go out to West Side and learn from Louis.

00;00;23;01 - 00;00;40;12

And not saying you take all those things for gospel, but you got to learn from all the different people. And that's what he instilled in me. So I think that throughout my journey, it's been great to have my own mentors and then take pieces of what they've taught me and then kind of make it into the mix that we have.

00;00;40;14 - 00;01;04;06

This is the next coaching podcast where we talk to strength and conditioning coaches about what you really need to know, but probably didn't learn in school, their strength and conditioning. And then there's everything else. This is the NSCA Coaching Podcast. I'm Eric McMahon from the NSCA. And today we have another big episode from the NFL. In football, we typically think of players who are making an impact on the field every Sunday.

00;01;04;08 - 00;01;24;05

But what about the players coming back from injury? We have a guest with us today, Thomas, Myslinski, who works in that space as a reconditioning and return to football strength and conditioning coach. Hey, thanks for being with us. Hey, thanks for having me online. Awesome, man. All was great connecting with you at the NFL meetings. I know your dad really well.

00;01;24;05 - 00;01;46;24

And before I go any further, I want to just mention you are Thomas. Myslinski, the third. Your dad played in the NFL. He's a successful strength and conditioning coach also. And you are a third generation strength and conditioning coach. I am yep. I don't hear that very much. Third generation. That's really awesome. You got to really grow up in this profession.

00;01;46;27 - 00;02;01;21

Yeah I did I miss my father's probably best judgment to me a lot of the times to telling me, are you sure you don't want to get in anything else? And I'm like, the whole time growing up around him, it was the only thing I've ever wanted to do, so that's great. I love it. Awesome, awesome. What was it about those experiences?

00;02;01;21 - 00;02;31;13

I know you had a lot of early NFL experiences with your dad playing. He made the transition into coaching. What was it like growing up around football and the strength the conditioning field? Yeah, well, the first is it was incredible. I mean, and that's just like kind of a word to summarize everything. I mean, from as young as I can remember when I was, the first time I remember him playing was with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Indianapolis Colts and just kind of like snippets and just little bits.

00;02;31;13 - 00;02;52;28

So that's kind of like my first, you know, my first interaction with him is seeing him out there, seeing him as a player. And then I got to watch him go through his evolution of when he became a coach. And I got to see the change that occurred there. And, and throughout that, I got to see his coaching life cycle where he started out, you know, as an assistant, worked a head guy, and he learned a lot of things throughout the way.

00;02;52;28 - 00;03;07;28

And, him and my dad always were my dad and I would always used to say that I was the gum on his shoe, because there'd be a lot of times where, all right, hey, we got a training camp going on. All right, well, let's go pack a bag. Let's go. And I just go in there, and I would be the unofficial ballboy.

00;03;08;00 - 00;03;25;29

We were in Cleveland at the time. I remember catching punts for Dave Zastudil and Phil Dawson and running around the equipment room and grabbing guys dirty laundry, like, just soaking everything in and doing everything I possibly can and just being there with him. And then, of course, you know, he he trained me and we got to, to dive into that.

00;03;25;29 - 00;03;46;01

So, I mean, that's like the earliest time where I got to really learn is just being around him. His unofficial intern, cleaning up the weight room, doing daily activities with him. I mean, everything was just incredible. And then not only that, too, but I got to see a lot of the other, the football X's and O's of it too, because I would be outside during practices and I would get to watch.

00;03;46;01 - 00;04;11;25

And as a former linebacker myself, I would go hang around the different groups and I would just try to learn ball. And it was great. I just got to learn through, as you say, just learn through osmosis. Sometimes I didn't even learn to understand what I was learning at the time, and it wasn't until later I kind of was able to piece together a lot of those things that, you know, from my childhood, you're speaking a little to your path into the field as well.

00;04;11;27 - 00;04;35;23

Through being an athlete, like a lot of us, we discover strength conditioning through our athletic experience. But you had that unique advantage. You had access to high level sport at a young age. And, and your dad was going through this progression himself. What advice did he give you and others give you that helped you navigate your path when you were starting to make career decisions?

00;04;35;26 - 00;04;59;21

Yeah, it's a good question. I think, a couple things stand out to me. The first is, to be a Swiss Army knife. Don't don't dive into one thing. He, he he actually wouldn't let me, get into the field unless my undergrad was in something else other than S&C. So my undergrad was in nutrition and dietetics, so I could kind of understand that that aspect in that role a little bit and which in turn is definitely helped me in the reconditioning and just general lesson.

00;04;59;22 - 00;05;16;28

Seaside. And then from there I went on to, learn a little bit of sport science, but you have to his point was that you can't just be a one trick wonder. You have to understand a lot of different things. And so I was very understanding of that. And, he always taught me to, to learn the sport of whatever sport it was.

00;05;17;00 - 00;05;32;27

So a lot of those and then his big one that he I still carry to this day was, is, no matter what I do don't program scared the resilient their athletes don't program scared. Trust in your principles that you've been taught. And, but the first one to be is multifactorial. You know, be a Swiss army knife.

00;05;32;27 - 00;05;48;13

Like go learn. I remember when he was, in the field and he would bring in, you know, mentors of his, like Charlie Francis, or he would be with buddy, and they'd go out to West Side and learn from Louis. And not saying you take all those things for gospel, but you go learn from all the different people.

00;05;48;13 - 00;06;10;06

And that's what he instilled in me. So I think that throughout my journey, it's been great to have my own mentors and then take pieces of what they've taught me and then kind of make it into the mix that we have. So we're starting to talk about an emerging role in the strength and conditioning profession. That and you have that role with the Jets reconditioning and return to play coach.

00;06;10;08 - 00;06;27;03

What is your typical day or week look like during the NFL season and even the offseason? Sure. So let's talk right now. Offseason that's we're in dead period two right now. So really we can't really do too much with these guys. These guys were on my dad used to always call them the black holes because you don't know what they're doing.

00;06;27;03 - 00;06;53;19

So you got this time gap where they're away on vacation. Some guys are trained, and, you would always call it the rule. So you got a third guys come back, fit a third probably, or a third. You don't really know. But anyways, from a FTP standpoint specifically, anybody who's still going under any process or needs anything clearing up or anything that may be like that, the medical staff wants to keep them here or whatever.

00;06;53;25 - 00;07;16;07

We work with them, we're allowed to work with them. So that's great that we have that ability. And that's most of the offseason. The dead period wanted to in-season, in-season gets honestly, that's like the most fun because that's, you have to learn and we have to fit our own kind of week planning with these guys or their own, week schedule into what the team is doing.

00;07;16;09 - 00;07;38;07

And we have to kind of fit into their scheme and their periodization. Kind of everything flows. So it's it's this unique blend of kind of what's going on with the team at that point in time and kind of working backwards and slotting them in where it's appropriate and kind of just bringing them along so that when they reenter, it's it's it's the same the rehab strength, the conditioning coach role being.

00;07;38;07 - 00;08;01;00

In addition, if you look back, it was typically you had the sports medicine staff and then you had the performance or strength and conditioning staff. Why do you see the rehab and see role as an important one, and how much interaction do you have with the medical side on a daily basis? Absolutely. So I think that it is it is a role of utmost importance.

00;08;01;00 - 00;08;18;20

And the reason why is, I think and I reflect back to I remember my father used to tell me this, and I remember watching him do this when he was a head strength coach. It's so hard to your attention, so pulled in different directions. I mean, even right now with our head strength coach Corey Smith, he has to worry about the whole team as, he's got to worry about training the whole team along with the other strength coaches.

00;08;18;23 - 00;08;44;07

I'm not saying he doesn't have the time. He definitely always we can always make things work, but it's easier to have somebody solely focused on that small cohort of guys that are maybe going through something where all my attention and all my focus is surrounded by, let's say, six people or whatever it may be at a time. So they get a lot more one on one attention, and they got somebody who's also a strength coach, knows what the whole team's doing and can integrate them right back into the system.

00;08;44;09 - 00;09;13;25

And in a matter of that is consistent with Corey, our head strength coach, and Eric, former director of, performance. So I think that that level of detail is needed. And I think that that's what you kind of that's why you're seeing that happen more and more. As to the, amount of time that I spend with the trainers all the time, if, if, if S&C is who I talk to the most ATCs who I talk to probably on par, maybe sometimes, if not more.

00;09;13;28 - 00;09;31;19

My counterpart, is, Greg. He works over in, ATC. He's a PT/ATC. And him and I joined a lot of rehabs. So he handles a lot more of the acute stuff, and. Right, I'll handle a little bit more of the later stage as an S&C coach. So. But we are always partners and everything.

00;09;31;19 - 00;09;54;19

So every time we talk, every time it is, it's it's it's us talking. It's me going over there and learning how things work. And but that's kind of how it works. You mentioned the integration of the player back into the team scenario which an injury happens. They're they're on the sideline and you're building them back into practice eventually the game.

00;09;54;19 - 00;10;14;11

How important is workload management I know that's a big buzzword a big topic within the field right now. Do you, do you use workload management with your return to play processes? Yeah I do, I don't like talk too much like specifically until like how we do that, but just generally speaking, we have to prepare them for what they're going to experience when they reenter.

00;10;14;11 - 00;10;38;17

So as long as we are looking at what the team or looking at their historic data, if, let's say if it's in season or off season or they're reentering back into whatever time period that is, as long as that we have, you know, generally exceeded, you know, where they have been in the past. You know, that's how we would always want to make sure that they're entering at, the most opportune time for them from like a health standpoint.

00;10;38;17 - 00;11;02;27

We're not going to, you know, you don't want to put them at risk. But there's always a balance. There's a lot of things going on that would be a whole different conversation and a whole different topic about when people can enter, when people can things of that nature. But we always want to look back at what the team is doing, what they're doing individually, and we want to make sure that they're prepared, whether whatever metric we're looking at that, that they're prepared to handle that.

00;11;02;29 - 00;11;31;24

I saw you have your master's degree from ETSU. That's a program very renowned for sport science, technology, data, sport science. How do those integrate into the reconditioning side? Oh, it's incredibly much so. I love, our, our director of sport sciences, Alex Carnell. And, him and I always talk, and we love to go back and forth about a lot of different, monitoring and force played stuff and metrics, whatever it may be.

00;11;31;24 - 00;12;04;01

But if we we have, we can't guess. We have to know what's going on with them. So we have to be able to provide people with good information. We have to know exactly what's going on, especially me. If I have a cohort of six or whatever it may be, I better know those six guys inside and out, and I better have a really good understanding of what's going on, at what time frames, having a good understanding of what they were pre-injury where are they at post injury or whatever it may be, but I have to fall back on, you know, a lot of those learnings from Doc and Meg and Brad, we were down

00;12;04;01 - 00;12;33;09

there at ETSU and they did. And the good thing with them is, is that when they taught us all that stuff, it's it's they taught us principles and then they let us go off from there. And then we can use new pieces of technology but fall back on whatever they told us. So everything can follow into into where it needs to, whether it's right you got injured, board, force plates, GPS, whatever it may be, any internal that you may carry, but you have to.

00;12;33;10 - 00;12;59;16

We have to have a good surrounding. We have to have a good corpus of data to, like, make a paint a picture. So it just all comes back to working with Alex and making sure that or in the training staff excuse me, and making sure that what we have is, is, is great. Another thing you mentioned, just that deep dive that you have to go with each individual player when you're working with only six versus the entire team, it kind of gets you back into those principles.

00;12;59;16 - 00;13;21;29

Maybe you were talking about from ETSU of what does it needs analysis look like in this scenario. And when you're working around an injury that provides some guidelines, what's your process when you're you get a new athlete into your side of things that you are trying to integrate them, but also learn what their needs are and bring them back, maybe a little better than they were coming in.

00;13;22;02 - 00;13;48;18

Sure. Well, first thing is, I'm going to sound definitely like an DSU person here. To make an annual plan, it's to to have an understanding of what's my end goal, not necessarily timeline because this could be a plethora of different injuries. We could be talking post-op or acute or whatever it may be, but if it's a longer time, like I have to know where I'm going to end with this athlete, I have to know what they're going to be doing on field codes, ACLs, DeSales, high speed running, whatever it may be.

00;13;48;18 - 00;14;06;24

I have to know what's going on in the weight room. And then I have to triple back and program it back to work back to where they're currently at, and have a great progression back to where they are. So that's just the physical side of it. That's not even really thinking about like where they are mentally in this process or if they're hesitant to even do certain things.

00;14;06;24 - 00;14;34;21

So I think that kind of what it stems back to is just knowing where you want to go. Thinking back to rehab is just strength and conditioning. At least most of it is just following back and regressing and progressing things to where they can. And so we just work back and from there and we just kind of work together and we guide and we make sure that, you know, we're not progressing unnecessarily or whatever it may be, but we have to progress and we have to get back to where that end goal that we set is that goal line.

00;14;34;22 - 00;14;55;06

Still the goal line. It's not going to change. So we have to find different ways to get them there. So I always find that that's very, it's challenging. But I love that challenge piece of like adjusting them but trying to keep them like you have one plan and you don't want to deviate too far from it, but you know that you're going to have to plan B today, plan C today or camp.

00;14;55;06 - 00;15;15;01

It all comes back to you still got to get them on plan at the end of the day. So it's it's all fun to kind of like a song and dance to get them there. You mentioned all the different roles that exists now within the NFL locker room between health and performance, strength and conditioning roles, sport science director of high performance.

00;15;15;04 - 00;15;37;28

These are expanding rapidly in the conversations. Have got to be a big part of that. What does communication look like in your role day to day? Daily? I mean, there are so many times that there's conversations that happen. We'd like everything to be official, right where you have an official time. But a lot of times it's I don't wanna call em drive bys, but you have to communicate things all the time.

00;15;37;28 - 00;15;58;06

You have to. You have to make sure everybody's on, aware of everything going on. And especially in RTP. Well, just in general with everything, anything can happen. Anything can change at a, at a, at a drop of a dime. So as soon as something happens it is okay. Let's communicate via whatever channel, whatever way that we do, let's make sure everybody's aware of what's going on.

00;15;58;08 - 00;16;15;25

And especially for me, like with, with, returning to play, whether I have a big a combo or a skill and whatever strength coach generally would handle them, it's my job to make sure that that guy has a really good understanding of what's going on with their guy when they return back, so that it's it's a very seamless thing.

00;16;15;25 - 00;16;35;21

So that communication piece has to be very, very important alongside, you know, just our director and our head strength coach. Everybody has to be having great information sharing so that everybody's on the same page with everything at any point in time. No. I think it speaks to our versatility as coaches. Obviously we need to have a plan.

00;16;35;21 - 00;16;51;29

Sometimes we need to have multiple plans. And I reminds me of a time I had a player like, hey, how'd you come up with that adjustment on the fly so quickly? Well, hey, I honestly had already worked through it. We're already down plan B, plan C, and then we'll kind of get you back on the get you back on the wagon as soon as we can.

00;16;51;29 - 00;17;19;03

And that's that's the way we need to work adjusting around all the different areas in this episode, how you talked about different layers of the performance, health and performance team, really speaks to that. You've been around through generations of strength and conditioning. You've seen so much in your career, even as a kid up to today. Looking ahead, what excites you most about the strength and conditioning profession?

00;17;19;05 - 00;17;36;09

The tough one. I think that, I think that kind of the technology where everything's kind of going, I think it's allowing us to you where you had the whole Olympic debate before. That was a while ago. And now you start you having these these Kaiser pieces, you have these flywheels and you have all these different pieces of technology.

00;17;36;09 - 00;18;11;10

And and I'm very interested to see how everybody can take all of it and condense it kind of into one and not start sectioning off into that. Well, there are only this. It's like we have to understand the tool and we have to understand the adaptation that's required. So I think that looking ahead at all these new things or like the 1080 quantum or everything that's out there, like taking all of that and condensing it down, I'd be really excited to see, like how very smart people, you know, more than me out there can take it all, condense it down into like a, into like a this nice, beautiful plate of like, here's how

00;18;11;10 - 00;18;32;09

we do it all. And include everything because you want to use the technology, you want to use everything, and everything has a role. But I think a lot of people get too attached to things all the time. And instead of just, let's just use a little bit here, a little bit here. And I think that that's kind of like what you're seeing now is I think everybody's kind of diving into these different pieces individually.

00;18;32;09 - 00;18;54;19

And then I think they're all going to come together a better than they are right now. And the other side of that too, is I think that that in turn will make more specific RTP coaches, because we have to learn like there are certain tools for early rehab and late rehab. And I think that one day when that happens, I think that that will enforce or that will encourage more people to be more of like on the RTP side of things.

00;18;54;25 - 00;19;16;10

So I'm really kind of curious to see that. I'm also kind of curious to see just a general S&C. People diving more into, like the recovery piece. I love seeing people talk about the different recovery modalities, and I think is we have to be very well versed in that because just like we period as the weight room, we have to periodization recovery, too.

00;19;16;14 - 00;19;41;03

So I think that that's a very important piece, and I'd be curious to kind of see how much more we can get with that technology recovery. These are these are big topics in the field right now. What I'm hearing is that these are opportunities for us to expand and grow our knowledge into, new areas that we can integrate back into our training as strength and conditioning professionals.

00;19;41;06 - 00;19;59;17

Another layer there. Just like a programing analogy, there's times in a program where we're adding volume, we're adding breadth to the program, and there's times we're refining and really focusing in on a skill. And that's what's happening. The same thing in our field. We're bringing in a lot of new technology, a lot of new data, a lot of new information.

00;19;59;17 - 00;20;22;26

And we don't always know exactly how we're best applying that information. But over time, we're going to get better at that. We're going to refine that and hopefully come away with better understanding, better knowledge that we can take away and apply in our specific settings at the NFL level, at the youth level, everything in between. So I really love the encouragement there.

00;20;22;26 - 00;20;44;24

And I also think it's it's simple to say, hey, sport science is here. We all need to be on board. Technology is important right now. We all need to be a little bit more well versed. If this is an area of weakness for you, speaking out to everybody listening, get on board with it. Give it a shot. Try something new, even if it's a little outside of your comfort zone on the recovery side.

00;20;44;24 - 00;21;10;11

Get into the research. Figure out what works. We know sleep. We know nutrition. Those are the big ones. But what else is out there that might help serve your athletes, serve your environment. Make your strength and conditioning program run more effectively, or contribute to the sports medicine side of things and return to play, and maybe build a more positive relationship with your sports medicine team at your college or university at your high school.

00;21;10;11 - 00;21;36;23

These are huge takeaways and I really appreciate you sharing that today. Absolutely. Yeah. So that's it for today a different look into the NFL. Thanks for sharing. I love your story that you came up. You grew up in the field, got so much of a head start in the profession. But really, that was just growing up around sports and athletes.

00;21;36;23 - 00;21;59;01

Like a lot of us, we all had that in common. We fell in love with sport, and that led us into this awesome profession. I know people are going to want to reach out and continue the conversation. What's the best way for them to do that? Sure, absolutely. I can go ahead and, my Instagram, or email, my email is, my last name Myslinski TJ at gmail.

00;21;59;04 - 00;22;15;28

For my Instagram, I had to look it up right here because I don't even remember it. It's Thomas underscore Myslinski 45. So those are the two best ways to, to reach out. And I just want to say thank you so much for having me on. It is a complete honor. I've listened to these grown ups and throughout.

00;22;15;28 - 00;22;36;07

So it's a complete honor to be on here today. And, thank you. Absolutely. Well, welcome to the podcast, family. I little I'll go ahead and say one more thing to kind of about my father is not not only that, but two is. Yeah. Growing up has been a great piece of being with my father. But the other cool thing is my father kind of still works in this field.

00;22;36;10 - 00;22;52;01

He's he's good. Especially so I still have a I still get one on one awesome access to him every single day. Every time I hop on the phone, we get to hop on. And our way of bonding right now is just through talking, through everything that you and I just kind of talked about in such a deeper basis.

00;22;52;01 - 00;23;08;00

So it's so cool that not only is as a kid, I got to experience that with him, but now I'm side by side with him doing that too. It is. It is the best thing ever. That's really cool, man. And, I, I look forward to a call from him when this episode gets published to see what he thinks.

00;23;08;02 - 00;23;31;18

And thanks to everyone tuning in today to the NSCA Coaching Podcast. We hope today's episode gave you practical insights and ideas that you can apply in your coaching. And if you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with one of your colleagues. Special thanks to Sorinex Exercise Equipment for their continued support of the NSCA Coaching Podcast.

00;23;31;20 - 00;23;37;15

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00;23;37;18 - 00;23;59;00

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