The Biggest Loser is leaving their fancy gym and state-of-the-art fitness equipment at home when the contestants head to Camp Pendleton to live and train like some of the most fit and motivated people in this great country: the Marines.
Tonight’s episode, which is only one hour, wastes no time as two Marines pile the contestants into military trucks and the gang embarks on the fitness test of their lives at the largest Marine training facility on the west coast. The week’s workouts are led by a select group of Marines that takes the contestants, including Frado, a former Marine himself, on grueling hikes with loaded backpacks, forces them to complete early morning rifle exercises and intense obstacle courses that build their physical and mental strength and endurance.
Boot camp style workouts have recently exploded in popularity. You can find boot camp fitness classes in every venue and intensity level for your liking, from a neighborhood park where a women’s-only class focuses on body weight exercises like squats and push ups, to more intense, sweat-drenching boot camp workouts in musty warehouses where exercisers yell and grunt as they flip tractor tires or drag boulders. The common thread in boot camps, however, is that you don’t need anything expensive or cutting edge to get in a great workout. Your body weight and the will to succeed is all you need to push yourself further than you ever thought your body could go.
The Marines know this feeling well, and after tonight’s episode of Biggest Loser, so will all the contestants- if they make it through.