Last year against North Carolina, Florida State University running back Greg Jones took a handoff and ran off tackle. About 10 yards downfield--BOOM!--Jones flattened Tar Heel safety Dexter Reid like truck on turtle. Jones's hit knocked Reid off his feet and the helmet off his head.

"It's probably one of the most violent hits I've ever seen," Jon Jost, FSU's director of strength and conditioning, says of Jones, who motored another 7 yards before being tackled on the 21-yard run. "Greg got up and went back to the huddle. You see other players taunt, pound their chest. Greg just gets up and goes back to business."

And that's precisely why you've probably never heard of Greg Jones. He didn't have the flashiness of Pitt's Larry Fitzgerald or the lineage of Ole Miss's Eli Manning. And his numbers from his senior year (618 yards rushing) were on the south end of impressive.

But the Jacksonville Jaguars selected him in the second round of the 2004 NFL draft because there's plenty about the 6-foot-1 Jones that is impressive. For one, he possesses raw talent—the strength of a bear, the speed of someone being chased by one. Second, he had a stellar junior season that ended only because of a knee injury (938 yards rushing in nine games). And most recently, Jones hooked up with Tom Shaw, one of the game's premier strength and speed coaches, to apply the finishing touches. Shaw tinkered with Jones's workout like a chef adding ingredients to an already delicious dish. The result: They concocted the ideal running back.

At the predraft combine, Jones weighed 268 pounds and had 6.8 percent body fat. When he finished Shaw's four-phase, four-month program, Jones was down to 248 pounds with 3.6 percent body fat. Plus, he dropped from 4.6 seconds in the 40-yard dash to 4.5 (a significant difference over 40 yards), and he increased his bench press from lifting 315 pounds five times to doing four sets of eight repetitions at 315 pounds—with a max of 465.

The only flaws on Jones's pillar legs are the two scars on his right knee: a small one from the knee surgery at FSU his junior year and a slithering earthworm-like scar just above it from a patella injury in high school. His shoulders look like pumpkins—both in their full, round shape and in their grooves and striations. His chest is so broad you could surf on it. And his abs? Bulldozer treads.

"He looks like a race horse," Shaw says. "You can see all his veins."

Shaw believes that the brawny Jones is one of those guys with untapped talent—especially now that he's fully recovered from the torn anterior cruciate ligament that ended his junior season. As he enters his first pro season, Jones will be vying for playing time, but he'll also stick to his training principles. "You gotta get out there," says Jones, who's nicknamed Tank because of his ability to run over people. "There's no easy way. I'm trying to push the limit. I just want to be the best, be successful. Plus, I want to win."

Shaw says Jones's major strength is just that: major strength. "He's got prison strength—like guys who all they do is lift weights when they're there. He's freaky strong." Once, Darnell Dockett—a 6-foot-3, 275-pound defensive lineman—squatted 465 pounds five or six times in the FSU weight room. "He was really making a big deal of it," Jost remembers. So his teammates egged Jones on to put a sock in Dockett. As humble and polite as he is strong and competitive, Jones walked over. "Greg matched what Dockett did, racked it, and went back to his workout," Jost says.

"I have never seen anybody that combined the size, strength, power, speed, agility, and quickness of Greg Jones," Jost says. "I've been around a lot of phenomenal athletes. I can't recall anyone who has the physical attributes that Greg has."

FSU football players are rated on a strength index to compare strength between players of different sizes. "Greg tested pound-for-pound as the strongest player on the team," Jost says, "and there wasn't anybody even close."

Trainers attribute Jones's power to his genetics, training program, and work ethic. While you're out of luck with the first one, you can rebuild your body by following some of Tom Shaw's workouts—and cranking up the intensity. Add these principles to your workout and watch your body grow bigger, stronger, and faster.

For the rest of this article, order the Fall 2004 issue of Men’s Health Muscle by clicking here.