Child Bodybuilding: How Jacked Is Your Kid?

Unlike most 7-year-olds, Giuliano Stroe spends much of his playtime in his family’s Ciuresti (Romania) gym, lifting weights and toning his muscle-ripped prepubescent body. In one workout video recently posted on his popular YouTube (GOOG) page—Stroe’s videos have been viewed 13 million times—Giuliano benchpresses twice his body weight, flexes his biceps, and then growls at the camera like a cherubic Hulk Hogan.
The boy owns Guinness World Records for (1) the shortest amount of time to walk 10 meters on one’s hands with a medicine ball between one’s legs and (2) the number of “air push-ups”—which are like normal push-ups except much harder, since one’s feet aren’t allowed to touch the ground. Stroe completed 20 without breaking a sweat.
Iulian Stroe claims his son became obsessed with strength training as a 2-year-old, if not earlier. “He has been going to the gym with me ever since he was born,” Iulian told the Austrian Times online newspaper last year. The hard work is paying off; Iulian recently announced that Tokyo-based Fuji Television Network paid him €1,000 (roughly $1,400) for a 30-second clip of his son in action. He declined to speak to Bloomberg Businessweek because, he says, he only does TV interviews now.

The Stroes have become icons of a child bodybuilding netherworld that was, until recently, merely a dream of enterprising trainers and testosterone-fueled pageant dads. According to market research firm IBISWorld, gyms and health clubs have become increasingly popular among the Care Bears set. “Youth memberships have become one of the fastest growth areas for the fitness club industry,” says IBIS senior research analyst Taylor Hamilton. “And many clubs have begun shifting their focus to this area.” Over the past five years pre-adolescent and teen memberships have increased by 2.9 percent annually—and the 6-to-11 age category has almost doubled since 2005.
Jeff Martin, director of youth programming for CrossFit Brand X, a health club in Ramona, Calif., claims his business has doubled in the past three years and that the majority of his new clients are underage. “We have kids coming into our gym now who are 2½, 3 years old,” Martin says. Brian K. Maloney, director of fitness and education at New York City’s Visions Wellness Center, believes his gym is attracting a younger crowd mainly because it allows it. “Unlike a lot of health clubs and private gyms, which won’t let you work out in the weight room unless you’re 16 or older, our insurance covers younger members,” says Maloney, who charges $70 and up for pre-adolescent sessions. “We cater to people who have the money,” he says.
Those endeavoring to break into the mini-meathead circuit can bring out their guns on a growing circuit of national bodybuilding events that peak during the summer. Among the most prestigious are the USA Powerlifting’s Men’s Teen, Junior & Open Nationals, held last month in St. Louis; the Iron Boy Powerlifting N.C. Push Pull Championships, held in Kings Mountain, N.C., on July 9; and the GNC Teen and Masters Nationals, later this month in Pittsburgh. At the 2009 Iron Boy Powerlifting contest, 12-year-old Joel Delgado impressed the crowd by dead-lifting 240 pounds. Fitness coach Jay “Big Red” Cholewa has trained enough gifted preteen lifters to recognize a rising star. “That’s quite a feat,” he says.
Participating in these competitions, however, isn’t cheap. This October’s Junior USA Natural Bodybuilding & Fitness Championship—the Peabody Awards of youth bodybuilding—charges $60 per contestant, with an additional $5 for processing. Then there’s the mandatory $50 to $70 drug testing fee and a $25 late fee for forms submitted within two weeks of the competition. If a contestant wants a DVD of his performance, that’s an additional $79. Eager parents must shell out $45 for premium seating.

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