Hidden Muscle

Hidden Muscle
At the time I was going to a very small college located on the Oregon coast. We were expected to do some volunteer work as part of our education, so I volunteered with a few other students for a job that involved making sure that some boys attending an athletic-recreational after school activity, got back to their school safely where their parents would be waiting to pick them up. The boys were mostly fourth graders with a few younger kids also involved. A fellow college student who was assisting me (his name was Brian and he was a strong athletic guy), generally carried one of the larger 4th graders piggyback on his shoulders, during the six weeks that I had volunteered. On the last day of the program there was a new 2nd grader boy attending and he asked Brian if he could ride piggyback instead. Brian asked me if I would carry the boy that he normally carried since he wanted to give the other boy a turn sitting on his shoulders. I was somewhat dubious about doing this as I still was very much a light-weight—weighing at that time maybe a hundred and twenty pounds at the most… and the kid that I was to be lifting maybe weighed 70 to 90 pounds which would have been far more then I could comfortably lift earlier in college. I put my head between this kids legs and tried to stand up but found that my legs simply were not strong enough to lift our combined weight – so I gave up. An aside: the kid I tried to lift was maybe at most 5 or 6 inches taller than his classmates and from the way he dressed in the cold oceanic climate, completely concealed any physical dimensions that he had... all I can say is that he was heavy.
I apologized to the kid that I was trying to lift; and had to ask him to let me go…his legs were semi-wrapped around my head in preparation of being lifted and I was in an awkward, bent over position. The only thing that I noticed up that point about the boy was that it seemed that he was made out of cement as his legs seemed to be made of cast iron when I was trying to lift him.
He gently asked politely, “Could I lift you?”


Stunned, I said, “Yes”; but I was curious how he was going to lift me. Many kids seeing how skinny I was as an adult have lifted me before, usually by simply putting their arms around my waist and then lifting me up briefly. But this kid had a different idea in mind. Initially he asked me to spread my legs apart, I was shocked and thought to myself is he really going to try to carry ME on his shoulders? He walked around me once to give me a once over and then said, “I think that’s too easy, put your legs together, I am going to lift you a different way, I’m going to show you all how strong I am!”


He told me to keep my legs together and be prepared for a surprise. Grabbing me by the mid thighs from behind with his surprisingly large hands, he first curled me off the ground, then pressed me over his head without so much as a grunt and then commanded me to spread my legs apart so that he could sit me on his shoulders. I was so started by his display of strength that I didn’t hear his initial command, but while holding me over his head he pulled my legs apart and sat me on his shoulders. He then carried me piggyback all the way back to the school which was about 10 blocks or about one mile in distance. Amazingly, he showed no sign of fatigue and seemed to manage my weight, light but tall as I was, without any difficulty. As we approached the school yard he commanded that I squeeze my legs tightly around his neck as hard as I can. I said questioning him, “will that hurt you?” He said with certainty, “You can’t hurt me.”


So I with all my strength tried to press my legs together, but he grabbed me by the mid-thigh again and easily pulled my legs apart and before putting me down pumped me up several times. He then gently placed back down on the ground.
Both myself and the college student with me (who had been carrying this kid the whole semester) were absolutely amazed at this kids great strength and I exclaimed, “How can a kid in the fourth grade have such strong muscles?” The kid replied as his dad was approaching, “Well, I am actually not a fourth grader in age. You see I was held back a couple of times and I am 12 years of age.” At that point he rolled up the sleeve of his shirt and flexed a most defined and peaked bicep that was about the size of a large cantaloupe.
Yet another true story that happened when I was a college freshman.