Will, There were a number of things involved in that 8 weeks. To start with I had joined the US Army. Prior to going to Basic Training my most strenuous physical activity had been long distance swiming. I also had a few habits that were not really in my best interest (drugs, and only eating one small meal a day) so basically I was scrawny and underfed. Quiting drugs and eating regular probably put at least 20 of those lbs on, but the rest were from fitness training army style. This consited of two 2hr PT (physical training) sessions a day. Both sessions started and ended with about 20-30 mins of streching and warm-up/cool-down (jumping jacks, a few push-ups. LOTS of streching). In the morning it alternated between running (my group ran average of 5-7 miles every other day) and "strength training" wich constied of many reps of multiple exercises like push-ups, sit-ups, leg lifts, running in place, grass drills (nasty form of exercise that the Army believed needed to be done in mud or sand), squat thrusts, and various other exercises that do not involve addition equipment, also assited resistance in the above (doing pushups while your buddy pushes down on your shoulders). On top of the two scheduled PT sessions daily, any time we made a mistake, or the Drill Sargents felt like punishing us, we did addition push-ups throughout the day, on average I was "punished" 5 times a day. The first week it was 10 push-ups and that was difficult for me at the time, by week 4 we were doing 20 push-ups every time we were punished, by the end of the 8 weeks we were doing 25 and it was very easy for me. I don't know if this will help you much, as it took a sadistic Drill Sargent to make me do all of this.
