Get Ready for Basic Training Before the Bus Ever Arrives

Start with the run.

Whatever branch you signed with, the timed run is the event that sends people home, recycles them into a fitness platoon, or just makes ten weeks miserable. And it's the one thing you can absolutely fix before you ship, as long as you give yourself eight weeks and don't try to do it in ten days.

Here's the honest version of what that looks like. Three running days a week. One easy 20 to 30 minutes at a pace where you could hold a conversation. One day of intervals, something like six rounds of 400 meters hard with a walking minute between. One longer effort that builds to three miles, then four. Add no more than about 10 percent of total weekly mileage each week. That number sounds conservative until the first time you jump from 6 miles to 15 and wake up with shin splints you can't run off.

Get the actual standards from the actual source, not from a guy at the gym. The Army's ACFT scoring and event list is on army.mil. The Marine Corps posts its Initial Strength Test requirements at marines.com, and you'll take that test in the first days at the depot. Navy and Air Force post theirs at navy.com and airforce.com. Recruits get told wrong numbers constantly. Print the real ones.

Buy the shoes, then buy them again

Your feet are the whole thing. Blisters are what turn a strong recruit into a limping one, and a limping one into a medical hold.

Go to a running store and get fitted properly. You'll spend somewhere north of $120 for real running shoes, and that's cheaper than a stress fracture. Buy two pairs if you can and rotate them. Then buy good socks. Merino wool blends hold up better than cotton, and cotton is what shreds your heels at mile two.

Learn to tape and prevent hot spots now, not in week three of training. Body Glide or plain petroleum jelly on the high-friction spots. Moleskin in your kit. If you feel a hot spot forming, deal with it at the next halt instead of being tough about it. Nobody is impressed by an infected foot.

If your shipping date allows it, put some miles on your feet under load. A 20-pound pack, two or three miles, on pavement and dirt. You don't need to ruck like an infantryman. You need your feet, hips, and lower back to have met the concept.

Upper body, and the part everybody skips

Push-ups fail people more than anything else on the strength side, and they fail for a boring reason: form. A push-up with your chest three inches off the deck and your hips sagging isn't a push-up, and the grader won't give it to you.

Do them daily. Sets of whatever you can hold with a straight body line, arms at roughly 45 degrees from your ribs, full lockout. If you can only do eight good ones, do five sets of six. Volume with clean reps beats grinding out garbage.

Pull-ups if you're headed to the Marine Corps. If you can't do one yet, start with hangs, then negatives, then assisted reps. Three times a week, every week, and it'll move.

The skipped part is your core and your grip. Planks, farmer's carries with a couple of dumbbells, hanging knee raises. Ammo cans, sandbags and stretchers all get moved by people whose hands hold out. And if you're already a runner who can knock out a 19-minute three-miler, your problem is the opposite of everybody else's. You need to lift. Squats, deadlifts done with a coach or a good instructional, presses. Thin and fast gets hurt carrying things.

Show up rested, not shredded

Taper the last week. Light runs, mobility work, sleep. The temptation is to cram fitness into the final ten days, and all that does is put you at reception with a tweaked knee and an eight-hour sleep debt.

Reception isn't training. It's paperwork, shots, haircuts, uniform issue, and a great deal of standing in a line that isn't moving. It's also where undisciplined guys fall apart, because they partied for two weeks straight before shipping and now they're running on fumes with a needle in each arm. Sleep is the single cheapest advantage you can bring.

Quit nicotine before you go. Not on the bus. Now. Withdrawal plus a drill sergeant is a combination you don't need.

The mental game is simpler than people make it

The stress at basic is manufactured on purpose. It's a controlled environment designed to see how you behave when you're tired, hungry, confused and being corrected in a loud voice. That's it. Knowing the machinery doesn't make it comfortable, but it does stop you from taking it personally.

Three habits carry people through.

• Be gray. Don't be the fastest and don't be last. Don't be funny. Don't be the guy with an opinion about the schedule. Do the thing, do it now, do it loud enough to be heard.
• Sort your minutes. Eat everything on the tray. Drink water at every chance. Sleep the second the lights go out, even if it's 40 minutes. Fatigue is what makes small problems feel enormous at 0300.
• Get outside your own head. Help the recruit who's struggling. Service is the fastest cure for self-pity, and it's also how squads start functioning.

Chapel is available every Sunday at every training installation, and chaplains are there to talk in confidence, about faith or about anything else. Plenty of men have done their first serious praying in a bay at 5 a.m. with 50 strangers breathing around them. It counts.

Handle the boring administrative stuff now

Tell the truth at MEPS. All of it. Prior injuries, prescriptions, procedures. A waiver granted up front is an inconvenience. An undisclosed condition discovered later is fraudulent enlistment, and the consequences are real. Your recruiter can walk you through the process, and the official rundown is at mepcom.army.mil.

Open a checking account and set up direct deposit before you leave. Get your Social Security card, driver's license and any required documents in one folder. If you have a family, talk to a legal assistance attorney about a power of attorney before you ship, not after. Wear glasses, not contacts, for the last few weeks so your eyes are used to them.

For the family left at home

Write letters. Actual ones, on paper. Mail is the currency of basic training and your recruit will read yours until it falls apart.

Keep them cheerful and keep them boring. The dog, the truck, the neighbor's fence. Don't send updates that create problems the recruit can't solve from 900 miles away, and don't send food, which gets confiscated at best. Mailing address comes after arrival, usually in the first form-letter phone call.

If you're a spouse or a parent trying to figure out pay, benefits, or what happens next, Military OneSource is free and staffed around the clock at 800-342-9647, or militaryonesource.mil. Use it. It exists for you.

Ten weeks from now, you'll be able to do more on four hours of sleep than you ever thought you could do rested. That's the whole point of the thing, and nobody can hand it to you. Go get the shoes.