Alabama running back Mark Ingram says he’ll reveal a more svelte form when he takes off his shirt and steps on the scale at the NFL scouting combine, the result of an intense training program he started when the college season ended.
“The first week, you barely can walk, you know. Your hips are busted up, everywhere. Arms, shoulder, back, you’re just busted up. And it’s like, man, why am I doing this?” Ingram told the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, where he’s been working out with a personal trainer. “But after a while, the next week you feel better, next week you feel better, next week you feel better, and you start getting more and more confident in everything that you’re doing here. The training is hard, it’s not for everybody, it’s really not. But that’s what I love to do. I love hard work.”
As I wrote in today’s Wall Street Journal, you can gamble on players’ combine numbers, and the oddsmakers have put the over-under on Ingram’s 40 time at 4.46 seconds.
Ingram says he’s down to 212 pounds and ready to run fast, although he’s not predicting a specific time. And his trainer, Wyatt Harris, makes a point of saying that Ingram isn’t working out to perform well in shorts and a T-shirt this week, he’s working out to perform well in a helmet and shoulder pads in the fall.
“Mark’s not here to train for the combine. We’re training guys for careers. The goal for me is to get him ready to go to camp and compete,” Harris said. “I care about him being able to do the things that NFL teams are going to want to see.”
And the first thing teams will see is a slimmer Ingram.