ALBANY – A week into camp and all’s well with Tiki Barber. No strains, no pulls, no breaks, no nothing.

His hamstrings are fine. His hands and fingers are working properly. He’s running freely and easily. Perhaps this year, he’ll remain healthy and actually get through the summer unscathed.

That’s the goal for Barber, the Giants’ indispensable running back, who altered his training methods this past off-season in an attempt to prevent his usual camp maladies from setting him back once the games count.

Usually, Barber trains hard months before camp and then eases off, hoping to rest his body for the grind of double sessions in the hot sun. His body hasn’t always responded well to that approach, as his muscular thighs often become fatigued and his hamstrings pull. That sets him back, leads to inactivity and a sluggish start to the season.

“I’ve always started seasons slow and I’ve never minded it because I’ve always finished great,” Barber said. “When I needed to be strong, I’ve been strong. But that’s been our problem, we’re always fighting for the playoffs in December, where we have to win every game. That’s not the situation you want to be in. You want to be in control.”

If Barber can get off quickly, the Giants will likely follow his lead. He was slowed by a bad hamstring last year and hobbled to a mere 29 yards in the opening loss to the 49ers. The year before, it was a nondescript 28-yard showing in a loss in Denver. Barber has missed six preseason games (all four in 2001 because of a broken left hand) in his career, which doesn’t seem like much, but he rarely gets out of camp as sharp as he needs to be.

“Once you pull a hamstring, it really doesn’t heal for two months,” Barber said, speaking from experience. “This is a grind here; it’s not overly taxing, but it’s a grind. Your body wears down if you can’t handle it.”

When Greg Comella played fullback for the Giants, he and Barber would regularly test their stamina and endurance running a steep hill and then back off about a month before camp.

“And I’ve always gotten hurt coming in,” Barber said. A change was needed, and Barber did not tax himself until recently, using what he described as “an alternative mode of conditioning.”

He ran a sand hill in New Jersey and added for the first time a heavy dose of boxing. He worked with Jon Davenport, Lennox Lewis’ former trainer, and hopes the footwork and movement he learned will pay dividends once the season starts.

“The conditioning he does is constant movement, shadow boxing, the footwork, the way you get leverage to make contact with people, I think will help me a lot,” Barber said.

Early in camp, Barber looks crisp and sharp and coach Jim Fassel hardly overdoes it with his star runner, who is coming off a career-best 1,387-yard, 11-touchdown season. When it came time for the Giants to hit for real for the first time in Wednesday’s short-yardage drills and again yesterday on the goal line, Barber was the lone offensive starter held out. No sense getting the franchise runner needlessly banged up.

“I want to find out about those other guys,” Fassel said. “I know Tiki.”

As a rookie in 1997, Barber tore his posterior cruciate ligament in his right knee and his career continued without the ligament. He’s only missed two games since then.

“I get hit, I get teed off on but I always get up,” Barber said. “I take a pounding for as little as I am, but I always get up.”