It was like a Rocky workout.



Cooper Bateman did a plank, resting on his elbows while using his core to hold himself in a pushup-like position. Next to him was Tom Brady's trainer, Alex Guerrero, who was wearing MMA gloves and repeatedly hitting Bateman in the midsection.



Hard.



It was one of the many intense and sometimes painful exercises within Brady's workout routine that Bateman, Alabama's redshirt junior quarterback, went through during a week at Brady's training facility in Massachusetts this summer. That one is designed to get a quarterback used to getting hit in the midsection and absorbing the blow.



"Afterwards, Cooper was like, 'What the hell was that?'" Bateman's mentor, Scott Cate, said. "And I was like, 'Hey, that's what Brady does.'"

It's part of Bateman's quest to win the Tide's starting quarterback job. The current favorite in Alabama's quarterback competition, Bateman spent his summer break working with a combination of Cate, Utah-based trainer Matt Martinez and Brady's team in Massachusetts.

"He's very confident right now," Cate, a former Utah quarterback, said. "He's like, 'I'm throwing it great.' Before, it was, 'Why does my ball wobble?' I was like, 'Settle down, dude. Peyton (Manning) threw a wobbly ball for 15 years.' But this last go-around, when I saw him in the winter and then spring and then this last part, it's been, 'I feel great.' He was throwing it here in Massachusetts, and it came out great. He's ready to go."





'I thought I was going to punch the guy'



Bateman first trained with Martinez back home in Utah before heading to Massachusetts for a week to work with Cate and Brady's trainers.



The routine in Massachusetts: Wake up at 6 a.m., throw with Cate, work out with Brady's team from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and then decompress golfing with Cate.



The primary goals for the time with Brady's trainers was to see how the New England Patriots' star quarterback trains and to learn things that can help Bateman going forward.



For example, Brady believes shoulder flexibility is crucial for quarterbacks.

Brady gets a massage twice a day that helps with shoulder flexibility. Bateman got that same massage while out in Massachusetts.



Like the core workout, it's not intended to be enjoyable. Bateman joked with Cate later, "I thought I was going to punch the guy."



"He said it was underneath his armpit, and the guy was just holding it for 15-20 seconds," Cate said. "Coop said he was just sitting there waiting (for it to be over) because it hurt. But afterwards, he kind of figured out that that's what he needs to do and the spots on his body that he needs to attack."





'He actually has really, really good speed'



The time with Brady's team began with an evaluation.



While the tests were done to diagnose deficiencies, they also showed the type of rare strength and athleticism Bateman possesses for the quarterback position.



"You should have seen him in the explosion parts," Cate said of Bateman, one of the top-ranked pro-style quarterbacks in the 2013 recruiting class. "They were amazed at his explosiveness. One of the things they evaluated, you would jump for 30 seconds, and it would show how much you came off the ground, what your tire point was, if one leg took over and stuff like that, and he was spot on on all the workout stuff."



At 6-foot-3, 225 pounds, Bateman ran the 40-yard dash in 4.59 seconds during the spring, according to Tide workout numbers obtained by AL.com. Bateman's time was tied for 14th-best on the team among scholarship players. That's impressive considering Alabama is regarded as one of the fastest and most athletic teams in the country.



Also, Bateman can bench press at least 315 pounds and, according to Cate, can power clean 330 pounds. Those are good numbers for a wide receiver or defensive back, let alone a quarterback.



"He actually has really, really good speed," Alabama star tight end O.J. Howard, who ran the 40-yard dash in 4.59 seconds last spring, said. "He's faster than me, so he's fast, athletic."

The biggest downside with Bateman is that he doesn't have the arm strength of David Cornwell or Blake Barnett, two of the other three quarterbacks in the mix for the Tide's starting job.

Accuracy has also been an issue in the past, though Bateman improved enough in that area last year that he remained in contention for Alabama's starting job until mid-September and started the Tide's SEC opener against Ole Miss before being benched following a second quarter interception.



While he was just 9 of 24 with a costly late interception during Alabama's spring game in April, Bateman was the most consistent and least mistake-prone of the Tide's quarterbacks during the spring. He received consistent praise from coach Nick Saban throughout the spring.



"Cooper's done a good job," Saban said. "He obviously has the most knowledge and experience with the offense. ... I think there's things that he needs to work on and we need to work on with him so that he can go out there and play with the kind of confidence and be the kind of leader and be the kind of decision-maker that we need at that position to play winning football, and that's what we'll continue to focus on."





'I see it coming back'



Martinez, a former Utah linebacker who trains Bateman in Utah, has had multiple conversations with Bateman since the end of last season about the opportunity that lies ahead.



"Those conversations have been about working out and actually feeling like 'This is my team and this is my time to take over,'" Martinez said. "Being behind (Blake) Sims and (Jake) Coker, he didn't really have the backbone to say, 'Hey, this is my team now. It's my turn.' But he knows that he needs to own that, and I've really seen a leadership change, and I think Alabama fans are going to see that to where they'll know that Cooper's going to drive it down the field and figure out a way to win. He was always that kind of guy in high school, and I see it coming back."



Bateman will have a chance to learn from two other future Hall of Fame quarterbacks, Peyton and Eli Manning, later this month when he works as an instructor at the Manning Passing Academy in Louisiana.

But Bateman has already done something Brady-like. Cate joked that Brady thinks so far in advance that he probably knows what he's going to eat "430 days from now." Bateman isn't going to that extreme. However, he created a calendar for the next several weeks with regular extra training scheduled in addition to normal team responsibilities.



He sent it to Cate last week.



"Cooper and I talked years ago when he was talking about going to Alabama," Cate said of Bateman, a former four-star recruit. "I said, 'You can start for a ton of schools out there that you can start for 3-4 years. Or do you want to play two or three years at Bama, have a chance to start at Alabama?' He said, 'I want to play at Bama.' Some of these kids coming out now, they want to start now. They want to do this and want to do that. Coop's always just been 'I want to get good so that when my opportunity comes I take advantage of it.'"