"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."
http://www.ctv.ca/se.....0strong child
Liam was born with an extremely rare condition first reported for humans (in published medical literature) in 2004: myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy.
The condition promotes above-normal growth of the skeletal muscles. He can potentially achieve 50% more muscle mass than humans born without this condition.
Just five years ago, medical literature didn't even acknowledge the possibility for a human to be born with this sort of genetic gift. People like Liam force us to re-examine the limits of what human beings are capable of achieving physically without resorting to steroids and the like.
Liam and a very small number of people like him could also "help scientists unlock the secrets of muscle growth and muscle deterioration. Research on adults who share Liam's condition could lead to new treatments for debilitating ailments such as muscular dystrophy and osteoporosis. If researchers can control how the body produces and uses myostatin, the protein could become a powerful weapon in the pharmaceutical arsenal. It also could become a hot commodity among athletes looking to gain an edge, perhaps illegally, on the competition, experts said."
As we can see from Liam's example, some humans are born gifted with the potential to have a physique that could only be achieved in others by use of drugs.
Edited by TianZi, 23 July 2008 - 09:54 AM.