Tuesday, May 22, 2007

German Superboy, Meet the American Terminator

Back in June 2004, I linked to a story regarding a German tot who was born with a rare genetic condition which enabled the boy to rapidly develop muscles.  I titled that post Superboy Lives, in Germany. A few days later, a reader was kind enough to notify me of a link which had a photo of the German muscle boy.

The article about the German Superboy noted that this was the first documented case of a genetic mutation of the myostatin gene, which resulted in the young tot’s exceptional muscle tone and development, and was reported as such in the New England Journal of Medicine. The article also speculated that the mutation was possibly related to further evolutionary development in humans.

Well, there may possibly be something to that, though I do not have adequate knowledge about the subject matter, genetically, to express further thoughts on the subject, but I can share this.

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 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.

“We call him the Hulk, Hercules, the Terminator,” his mother said.

Genetic condition gives boy above average strength

Photos of the American Terminator, Liam Hoekstra, here.

Posted by John Venlet on 05/22 at 04:12 PM
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