NFL

Jets’ Ryan challenges Jenkins, Woody to weight-loss contest

The win-now Jets don’t want weight to prevent them from being great.

That’s why, coach Rex Ryan, fresh off March lap-band surgery to help reduce his own weight, also is trying to get some of the big guys on the roster in proper playing condition for the 2010 season.

Taking a progressive, if unorthodox, approach to get two of his biggest players to lose weight, Ryan created a competition for nose tackle Kris Jenkins, right tackle Damien Woody and himself.

The goal is to see who can lose the most weight before training camp begins on Aug. 1.

Jenkins, who loves the competition concept, is in it for something else.

“I’m trying to get my sexy back,” he said with a grin.

A few weeks ago, Jenkins and Woody were called into Ryan’s office.

Jenkins: “We thought we were in trouble.”

Woody: “It was like we were going to the principal’s office.”

They weren’t. This is where Ryan presented them with his weight loss proposal.

Ryan would join them in a contest that would not only get them into better shape, but would raise money for charity. Each will put up money and the winner will send the total to his favorite charity.

“This is a competition I don’t mind losing,” Ryan told The Post.

Ryan said his idea for the contest is “right there along with our philosophy — ‘keep it likable and learnable.’ ”

“Competition brings out the best in everybody,” he said. “It’s so hard to lose weight anyway. If there’s any kind of fun element to be had out there it’s my job to go find it.”

Woody said Ryan presented it in a “cool” way.

“Let’s take something that is obviously something that we all battle and turn it into something fun,” he said. “That’s how Rex makes everything. That’s the way he relates to players and part of the reason why Rex is such a special coach.”

Jenkins and Woody have razzed Ryan for having an advantage with technology on his side, having had the lap-band surgery in March that is designed to curb the appetite by the band restricting how much he can take into his stomach.

“He wants to get attention for himself to let everyone know what a good job he’s going with the spandex band around his stomach, the shrink wrap,” Jenkins said jokingly.

Woody also quipped that the lap-band procedure is “like a PED (performance enhancing drug)” that provides him an unfair advantage.

Ryan, who already has lost more than 40 pounds, told the players the weight he already has lost doesn’t count. But the other day in the weight room, according to Jenkins, Ryan was bellyaching about how “no one’s giving me credit because I’ve already lost 40 pounds.”

Last week in the weight room, Jenkins spotted Ryan on a treadmill and “started striking some poses, poking my stomach out and rubbing it.”

Jenkins said he weighed in at 390 pounds to start the contest, 30 pounds more than his required training camp playing weight, but he intends to lose 45 pounds to win the competition.

Woody, who said he started at 366 pounds, has a playing weight goal of 327, but he wants to get below 320 to win the competition.

Both players are thinking beyond the contest and football.

“I don’t think there’s ever a finish line,” Woody said. “You want to keep going after that. Technically the contest will end July 30, but for all three of us we want to go beyond that, for the long term.”

mark.cannizzaro@nypost.com