Real life Hulk in the making

[Koenig]

Rare condition gives toddler super strength

ROOSEVELT PARK, Mich. -- Liam Hoekstra was hanging upside down by his feet when he performed an inverted sit-up, his shirt falling away to expose rippled abdominal muscles.

It was a display of raw power one might expect to see from an Olympic gymnast.

Liam is 19 months old.

But this precocious, 22-pound boy with coffee-colored skin, curly hair and washboard abs is far from a typical toddler.

"He could do the iron cross when he was 5 months old," said his adoptive mother, Dana Hoekstra of Roosevelt Park. She was referring to a difficult gymnastics move in which a male athlete suspends himself by his arms between two hanging rings, forming the shape of a cross.

"I would hold him up by his hands and he would lift himself into an iron cross. That's when we were like, 'Whoa, this is weird,'" Hoekstra said.

Liam has a rare genetic condition called myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy, or muscle enlargement. The condition promotes above-normal growth of the skeletal muscles; it doesn't affect the heart and has no known negative side effects, according to experts.

Liam has the kind of physical attributes that bodybuilders and other athletes dream about: 40 percent more muscle mass than normal, jaw-dropping strength, breathtaking quickness, a speedy metabolism and almost no body fat.

In fitness buffs' terms, the kid is ripped.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...70530/20070530

Holy crap.....I'm so jealous

[NooDle]

wow...A 19 month old that's in better shape than I am...

I feel like mr burns now

[argatoga]

Aren't there heart issues with that condition?

[Koenig]

Originally Posted by argatoga

Aren't there heart issues with that condition?

If you read it you'll see it says that there are no known negative side effects of this disorder, other than the need to eat alot due to the crazy metabolism.

[Werner]

i can't imagine that it will be healthy in the long-term.

[Gman333-X-ferrari]

A witch!

\But seriously, that's one interesting condition.

[matt2000]

Meh, he'll only end up being hired as some sort of hit man/goon. Or maybe he'll be a bond villain sidekick.

[TopGearDog]

He's the next Van Damme.

[poptya]

Why can't all diseases and disorders be that awesome?

[toma_alimosh]

Originally Posted by Koenig

If you read it you'll see it says that there are no known negative side effects of this disorder, other than the need to eat alot due to the crazy metabolism.

Actually ... myostatin helps break down skeletal muscles to be used as energy, if the body may need it. The reason why bodybuilders would want to lack this is because of their training: when gaining muscle you also gain a bit of fat along the way, thus to look ripped, you have to get rid of the fat by calorie deficit ... but calorie deficit means that fat isn't going to be the only tissue burned for energy needs ... muscle breaks down too in fat-loss programs, it just burns slower, thus you get ripped muscles.

Mind you, the only benefit you'd get from myostatin is that you have an extra energy reserve besides your body fat if you can't get food for an extended period of time. At the end of the ordeal, if you do get rescued out of your dire situation, you'd be dried up and famished, but you'd live. Say there's an earthquake and a building falls on top of you and you're trapped in the rubble, it may be some days before rescue teams find you. Or you get lost in the wilderness or in the middle of the desert. For those few days, your only sources of nutrition for staying alive are your fat deposits and muscles.

So myostatin is an old development in humans from when we used to live in caves ... sometimes the hunt was good and we caught prey, sometimes we came up empty, so we had to have something to hold us over.

So yeah, there is only 1 bad side-effect. The kid has to eat constantly and frequently in order to stay alive. The condition also induces low fat levels, and having that small a reservoir of energy and not being able to tap into your muscles for protein needs will cause starvation very fast. Thus if he were to not be able to eat for 2 days, he'd drop dead. Much much earlier than any other humans.

Mind you, if he watches himself and not get lost at sea or in the wilderness or anything like that and stays within the comfort of society where food is always available, he'll be just fine.

[argatoga]

Originally Posted by toma_alimosh

Actually ... myostatin helps break down skeletal muscles to be used as energy, if the body may need it. The reason why bodybuilders would want to lack this is because of their training: when gaining muscle you also gain a bit of fat along the way, thus to look ripped, you have to get rid of the fat by calorie deficit ... but calorie deficit means that fat isn't going to be the only tissue burned for energy needs ... muscle breaks down too in fat-loss programs, it just burns slower, thus you get ripped muscles.

Mind you, the only benefit you'd get from myostatin is that you have an extra energy reserve besides your body fat if you can't get food for an extended period of time. At the end of the ordeal, if you do get rescued out of your dire situation, you'd be dried up and famished, but you'd live. Say there's an earthquake and a building falls on top of you and you're trapped in the rubble, it may be some days before rescue teams find you. Or you get lost in the wilderness or in the middle of the desert. For those few days, your only sources of nutrition for staying alive are your fat deposits and muscles.

So myostatin is an old development in humans from when we used to live in caves ... sometimes the hunt was good and we caught prey, sometimes we came up empty, so we had to have something to hold us over.

So yeah, there is only 1 bad side-effect. The kid has to eat constantly and frequently in order to stay alive. The condition also induces low fat levels, and having that small a reservoir of energy and not being able to tap into your muscles for protein needs will cause starvation very fast. Thus if he were to not be able to eat for 2 days, he'd drop dead. Much much earlier than any other humans.

Mind you, if he watches himself and not get lost at sea or in the wilderness or anything like that and stays within the comfort of society where food is always available, he'll be just fine.

Yep that's why cavemen where not hunks of muscles, you can't support a body builder body off of scavenged bone marrow and berries.

[LurkerPatrol]

Finally someone to show up those group hug guys.

Group Hug! RAAAAAAWR!! ME CRUSH GAY GROUP HUG BODY BUILDERS! RAAAWR

*FISHER PRICE SMASH*

[CyberMonkey]

Wouldn't the size and strenght of his muscles deform his skeleton? Reports about conditions like this sometimes show up and they never were as positive as this one.

[Dark_Templer_102]

I wonder how much he can bench to be honest. I mean for some kid to be 19 months old to do the iron cross, he could prob bench a lot considering how much he actually weighs.

[nist7]

Originally Posted by CyberMonkey

Wouldn't the size and strenght of his muscles deform his skeleton? Reports about conditions like this sometimes show up and they never were as positive as this one.

The skeletal system of a human's body is very mobile. Your bones are constantly being resorbed and deposited according to hormonal and mechanical signals throughout life.

Now what's interesting is if his bones will keep up with his muscles. If he constantly works those muscles by straining and contracting, his body will then deposit more bone for added power. But if he just sit there bu his muscles keep growing, then he may have the muscular strength to do something but his bones might be weaker. A calcium and protein rich diet would help in that regard.

[FATMOUSE]

Originally Posted by nist7

A calcium and protein rich diet would help in that regard.

So what you're saying is, he can haz cheezburgers?

[pfrocker]

Don't make him angry.