It's a little after 6:30 in the morning at Oregon Ridge in Hunt Valley when Kurtis Shultz pulls into the parking lot in his Lexus SUV, cell phone already beeping furiously.

Within minutes, a group of people dressed in T-shirts and gym shorts and running shoes gathers wordlessly around him, each carrying a water bottle instead of the trash barrel-sized 7-Eleven coffees and double lattes the rest of us need to function at this hour.

Watching this whole scene, with two cups of Folger's sloshing around in my gut, I try to understand the concept behind how Kurtis Shultz makes his living.

Basically, the concept is this: People pay him to torture them.

As an athletic trainer, he tells his clients, in effect: Meet me at the crack of dawn, and we're going to run and do push-ups and chin-ups and carry heavy weights up a steep hill until your muscles scream and you want to puke or pass out.

But instead of heading the other way when they hear this, as any sane person would, there are people who actually think "Well, OK!" and reach for their checkbooks.

Me, I don't get it.

Then again, these six women and two men gathered here are rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed and extremely fit-looking, while I am a doughy man with a sallow complexion who, blinking in the morning glare, must look as if he spent the night locked in a car trunk.

For Shultz, who is 6-foot-5 and 280 pounds and resembles nothing so much as a grain silo in Nikes, this is just another day at the office.

This morning, he's working with experienced workout addicts from Padonia Fitness Center in Timonium, including a high school lacrosse player, a college lacrosse player and a longtime kickboxer.

He's also the strength and conditioning coach for the national champion Maryland men's basketball team - he was a backup forward for the Terps in the early '90s - and the personal trainer for Ravens All-Galaxy linebacker Ray Lewis, which accounts for his growing reputation as a trainer who gets dramatic results working with elite athletes.

But the 30-year-old Shultz himself is no elitist. He's not hung up on being another "trainer to the stars" like every other guy with big biceps and a tight shirt in that business.

In a couple of weeks, for instance, he'll be running a series of "Boot Camps." These will be outdoor morning and evening workout sessions for, he says, average Joes - among them wheezy, pear-shaped guys and florid-faced women with spreading hips who maybe haven't seen the inside of a gym in years.

"I get the most satisfaction," he says, "out of someone not thinking they can do something, and then working with that person and seeing them do it."

If this morning is a preview of Boot Camp, as Shultz insists, then I pity the poor future camper who's stretched out on the couch right now with a couple of beers and a bag of Cheez Doodles.

First the group goes for a spirited warm-up jog around the rolling hills, led by the human grain silo himself.

After that, they break out the exercise mats for some stretching and deep knee bends - "Oh-kay, Kurtis!" yells one woman when one of the knee bends extends into the 20-second range.

Then they take a little tour of Push-up Hell: 15 slow push-ups, 15 four-step push-ups, then more push-ups as other members of the group do pull-ups on Jungle Gym rings.

"You sure you don't want to jump in here?" a smiling Shultz, drenched in sweat, says to me.

It is at this point that I offer to go to Dunkin' Donuts and bring back a box of eclairs for everyone, but this goes largely unnoticed amid the general groaning and gasping for breath.

After some more stretching, the group heads for "The Hill," a grassy, savage-looking incline that seems to climb straight into the clouds.

Shultz and Erroll Roberts, a 33-year-old computer graphics artist from Catonsville, pair off and sprint in 20-yard intervals up the hill, followed by the others as Kurtis exhorts: "C'mon, keep working!"

But this is apparently too tame for Shultz. Because a few minutes later, he has each person pick up a barbell plate in each hand - he grabs a pair of 45-pounders, Roberts a pair of 35-pounders - and walk briskly up the hill.

"Leaning forward, weight on your butt," he instructs. "Then we're gonna stop and do full squats."

It is while watching this insanity from beneath a shady tree that I begin to wonder: If he pushes these people this hard, what must a Shultz workout with the great Ray Lewis be like?

"Ray-Ray? There aren't many people who can deal with his workout," says Shultz a few minutes later, when the session ends. "I mean even NFL guys can't deal with it. They'd lose their mind. What we go through in the off-season is ridiculous."

And then Shultz proceeds to tick off some typical Ray Lewis drills: bench presses with a 120-pound dumbbell in each hand. ("Yeah, we gotta get him new weights. That's way too light for him.") Sparring and kickboxing sessions with the hulking Shultz. Pull-ups, 15 to 20 at a clip, with 45 pounds of weight wrapped around his stomach. Ab wheel work, 200 reps at a time. Running drills up The Hill while carrying a 25-lb. medicine ball.

"You wish the guy was a little more dedicated," I say.

At this point, Kurtis Shultz says he has to go. He's off to breakfast and then another training session, which is just as well, because I'm getting exhausted just listening to all this.

Besides, taking notes at this pace saps a man, something all the Boot Camp in the world won't help.