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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.
"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 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.
"We call him The Hulk, Hercules, the Terminator," his mother said.
Liam can run like the wind, has the agility of a cat, lifts pieces of furniture that most children his age couldn't push across a slick floor and eats like there is no tomorrow -- without gaining weight.
"He's hungry for a full meal about every hour because of his rapid metabolism," Dana Hoekstra said. "He's already eating me out of house and home."
"Liam's never had any body fat," his mother said. "The only fat he has is in his cheeks."
For Liam's parents, the most pressing challenge is feeding the boy enough protein every day to fuel his body's high-performance motor. The wiry but muscular toddler eats six full meals per day and still struggles to gain weight.
Dr. Larson, the first physician to suspect Liam had myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy, said he was amazed by the toddler's strength.
"He was able to grab both of my hands and nearly do an iron cross," Dr. Larson said. "This is not something that happens for most men, ever, and here is this kid with this kind of power."
Larson said Liam's strength gives him a huge edge over other children, physically and in terms of self-confidence.
Liam's muscular thighs at 5 months of age gave him the appearance of a miniature Lance Armstrong. By 8 months, Liam was doing pull-ups and, a month later, climbing up and down stairs, his mother said.
What really amazed his parents was the way Liam fell.
"When he fell backward, he would land on his butt, but he never hit his head on the ground," Dana Hoekstra said. "His stomach would tense up and he would catch himself before his head hit the ground. You could see his stomach muscles. He had a little six-pack."
Liam has given his mother a black eye and once punched a hole in the plaster wall during a tantrum. "That's called attitude," his mother said.
Related: Look at the pic of that muscular cow.
