Saquon Barkley has yet to step on the field in a game for the Giants, but the running back already is turning heads.

“I was walking in the airport and a lady just stopped and looked at me and goes, ‘You have the best legs I’ve ever seen in the world. Not in New Jersey, the world,’” Barkley said, shaking his head as he recalled the interaction.

Barkley’s preposterously muscular legs drew attention while at Penn State, but he’s already discovered the increased spotlight of New York. Barkley wore shorts to throw out the first pitch before a Yankees game on May 29 and Twitter immediately took notice of his enormous quadriceps and calves.

Giants rookie @Saquon Barkley doesn’t skip leg day. pic.twitter.com/26Vw41uBEf

— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) May 30, 2018

Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. bestowed the nickname “Saquads” on his new teammate and a hashtag was born.

“Now that I came to the Giants and the Giants are in such a big media market, everyone is talking about my legs,” Barkley said. “The ‘Saquad’ thing – hopefully it goes away in a little bit, but it’s all fun and love. I’ve got to blame Odell. He kind of came up with that one. That was pretty clever of him.”

Giants general manager Dave Gettleman famously stated that Barkley was “touched by the hand of God” after selecting the 5-foot-11, 233-pounder with the second pick in the draft. But Barkley wasn’t always a physical specimen. It took years of weight room commitment with a dash of genetics to create one of the most hyped NFL prospects ever.

Barkley wasn’t a phenom while playing youth football in Coplay, Pennsylvania.

“He was a good player in middle school, but he wasn’t someone that we were like, ‘Oh my God, we can’t wait!’” said Brian Gilbert, who coached Barkley at Whitehall High. “He was just a good player, a little undersized through middle school.”

Barkley wasn’t sure if he would stick with football early in his high school career. He was a 5-foot-7, 155-pound running back on the junior varsity team as a sophomore. But an injury to senior running back James Wah opened the door for Barkley to join the varsity late in the season and he made some big plays during Whitehall’s run to a league title.

That success lit a fire under Barkley, who committed to the weight room in the offseason. The weightlifting combined with a growth spurt resulted in a 5-foot-11, 190-pound Barkley taking the field as a junior with increased confidence.

“I had to wait until I got to that size,” Barkley said. “It just kind of paid off at the right time, putting the time and effort in the weight room and hitting a growth spurt and puberty kicked in for me – I was kind of a late bloomer, I guess you could say – and boom.”

Barkley only had hoped to earn a scholarship to a Division II college after his sophomore season, so he was “shocked” when he got an offer from Rutgers “out of nowhere” in the summer before his junior year. Unsure if another Division I program would offer a scholarship, Barkley committed to the Scarlet Knights before rushing for 1,506 yards and scoring 27 touchdowns in a breakout junior season.

Barkley subsequently blew up as a recruit and he flipped his commitment to Penn State after his junior season. He was only scratching the surface of his potential as his body continued to develop.

Barkley remains close friends with Wah and Nick Shafnisky, who was Whitehall’s quarterback when Barkley was a sophomore. When Shafnisky and Wah returned home after their freshman year of college, they recognized the difference in Barkley.

“You saw it in his body,” Shafnisky said. “We used to wrestle all the time. We used to trash ‘Say’ just because we were older and bigger. But when we got back and ‘Say’ was a junior going to be a senior, we couldn’t even take him. He had a different kind of strength and a different kind of grip. You could tell, ‘Wow, this kid’s real. He’s going to be the real deal.’ ”

Barkley continued to attack the weight room heading into his senior season, setting the Whitehall football program’s records in the power clean (300 pounds) and push press (315 pounds).

“He was definitely an animal,” Gilbert said. “We work out four days a week and he would be in there the other three. He would ask if I could open up the weight room Saturdays and Sundays. He would always find time to get extra work in.”

Barkley arrived at Penn State as a big-time recruit after rushing for 1,856 yards and scoring 31 touchdowns in his senior season. But no one knew what he would become.

“He didn’t really say much of anything,” Penn State strength and conditioning coach Dwight Galt said of Barkley as a freshman. “He just worked.”

Barkley may have been quiet, but internally, a competitive fire burned. He took notice of the leaderboard on the wall in the Penn State weight room that documented the program’s record holders at every position in a variety of lifts, sprints and athletic tests. Barkley was determined to put his name at the top of the board.

“You get that extra motivation, that competitive nature in you when you walk in the weight room and you look up and you see the records and you’re not up there,” Barkley said.

Barkley’s weight room dedication in high school didn’t leave much room for improvement. He was 212 pounds with 6.9 percent body fat when he arrived at Penn State. Still, he took things to a higher level.

“Within six months, athletically and strength and power-wise, we knew he was pretty special,” Galt said. “A lot of these guys gain really fast really early and then they kind of start trending a little bit, which is basically Mother Nature and general physiology. He just never really did that. He just kept growing and responding really his entire two and a half years here.”

Barkley checked out of Penn State in December at 232 pounds with 4.8 percent body fat. He holds every running back record and is the overall leader in the power clean (405 pounds). His squat (650 pounds), bench press (455 pounds) and 40-yard dash (4.33 seconds) all rank third in program history for all positions. Barkley is Penn State’s all-time leader in strength index, which is a pound-for-pound measurement.

“I was just looking at the amount of weight that this man could lift, it was just amazing to me,” said Giants rookie defensive tackle Tyrell Chavis, who transferred to Penn State before the 2016 season. “It was actually shocking at first just because he was the running back. Then I started to realize he’s the strongest person on the team. There might be one or two linemen that could lift or bench more than him, but that’s it. That was mind-boggling to me.”

Barkley again was far more than a workout warrior. His weight room accomplishments translated to on-field production. He had 5,038 yards from scrimmage and 53 touchdowns in 38 career games at Penn State.

“I think the number one thing was just explosiveness. He can go from zero to top speed as fast as anybody I’ve ever seen,” said Galt, who has been a collegiate strength coach since 1989. “It helps him get through the hole, it helps him break through the second level, which is why he had so many long gains.”

Barkley grew into more of a leader as his college career progressed, but he was never the most vocal player. He didn’t need to say much because teammates took notice of the best player’s work ethic and followed suit.

“The thing about him is his competitive spirit is amazing,” Chavis said. “I’ve never seen somebody with the work ethic like him and his willingness to compete at anything he does.”

Barkley was close to a finished product when he arrived in January at Tom Shaw Performance in Orlando, Florida, to train for the NFL scouting combine.

“He was already fast and he was already strong,” said trainer Bert Whigham. “So a lot of it was flexibility and recovery after a season because he’s a running back.”

Whigham trains elite athletes for a living and even he was in awe of Barkley’s legs.

“I’ve never seen a guy with legs like his that can run like him,” said Whigham, whose client list includes Raiders defensive end Khalil Mack and Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott. “You see legs like Saquon’s in a 270-pound powerlifter. His quads look like a horse. When he doesn’t even flex, it’s like his quadriceps is over his knee.”

Barkley trained with Whigham for two months and then produced arguably the best all-around combine performance ever. Barkley ran a 4.4-second 40-yard dash, completed 29 reps of the 225-pound bench press and had a 41-inch vertical jump. All of those results ranked first or second among running backs.

While the football world buzzed, Barkley and his trainers were disappointed.

“We were all kind of disappointed in his combine time. He’s a lot faster than 4.40,” said Galt, who has clocked Barkley at 4.33 seconds.

The 29 bench-press reps tied with Georgia’s Nick Chubb for the most by a running back, but a sprained AC joint suffered in Penn State’s bowl game limited Barkley’s total.

“He should have done 34 or 35,” Whigham said. “He only benched for about two weeks leading into it.”

Such standards shouldn’t come as a surprise based on Barkley’s work ethic and ambition. Training never took a backseat leading up to the draft, despite the bevy of distractions presented to a top pick. In the week between the draft and the Giants’ rookie minicamp, Barkley spent three days working on his receiving skills with New Jersey-based trainer Tony Racioppi.

“He’s been on a whirlwind promoting the brand, but he’s the type of guy you don’t worry about training. He’s always doing that,” Whigham said. “It’s not a concern when you deal with a Saquon Barkley. He makes the right choice and does the hard thing. It was a pleasure working with him. He makes your life easy because he’s so competitive. He’s the most competitive person I’ve ever met.”

Barkley doesn’t mind the attention he gets while wearing shorts.

“I feel comfortable doing it,” Barkley said. “You got it, you worked for it, so flaunt it.”

But for Barkley, the physique is far more about performance than aesthetics.

“I think the reason why I got so serious with lifting and the reason why I am serious with training is because it paid off for me,” Barkley said. “It was something that had a direct correlation to the football field that I noticed when I was 15, 16. The better I got in the weight room, the better I got on the football field. So it made sense to me. I was like, ‘If I put in the time and the effort, I’m going to get back what I put in.’ ”

The Giants don’t have a leaderboard in their weight room. That’s fine with Barkley, who is now consumed with durability and longevity rather than max lifts. But the commitment to training that got him to this point won’t waver now.

“You can’t take that power-lifting approach now because the NFL is about longevity and being durable, especially at the running back position,” Barkley said. “It’s maintaining your strength, maintaining your speed, maintaining your conditioning. Obviously, you’ve got to be a smart football player, but a lot of athletic ability is from working out. Obviously, everyone is talented. But if you work harder in the weight room than someone, you’re going to get more than them.”

(Photo Credit: Brian Spurlock / USA TODAY Sports)