I was Baby Bodybuilders star lifting 171lbs aged 9 – I’m unrecognisable now

A weightlifting KID who appeared on a TV show for his athletic prowess is unrecognizable six years later.

Gage Gregurich was the star of a 2016 documentary film Baby Bodybuilders on TLC, which depicted young athletes participating in competitions.

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The reveal show featured Gage, then 11, and his father Bryce as he prepared for the competition.

In the documentary, Gage, sporting a spiked Mohican, boasted that he had won powerlifting competitions since he was nine years old.

“I can lift more than any other kid under the age of 12 and weighing 66 pounds in this universe or any other universe,” said the precocious youngster.

He went on to say that he started lifting weights when he was nine years old “when my dad went to Gym and I wanted to go too.

Now 17 and in high school in his native Nebraska, Gage has explained what it was like to be a kid weightlifter.

“I actually got into body-building originally through someone from HBO who was in the weightlifting youth olympics, and she loved my personality and character, so they ended up making a documentary about me and that one flopped,” he told The Sun Online.

“But through some of the people we met during that documentary, we met the people at TLC who wanted to make a documentary about me.

“So I actually got into bodybuilding through weightlifting. I’ve always been into a lot of sports, at the time I was playing soccer, wrestling and basketball as well.”

At just nine years old, Gage explains, “I was deadlifting three times my body weight, which would have been 171 pounds.

Still going to the gym, he can now deadlift 395lbs, squat 355lbs and bench 265lbs.

When asked about his unusual upbringing, he continued: “Yes, my childhood was very different from the average child.

“It was a lot of exposure, but I enjoyed all the experiences and learned a lot from them.

I was deadlifting three times my body weight, which would have been 171 pounds.

Gage Gregurich

“I don’t talk to any of the other kids [from Baby Bodybuilders] since I haven’t been able to find any of his social media accounts.”

But, he says, “Weightlifting started it all. I have 18 world records and 60 American records and now I’m committed to going to college.”

He is now committed to a wrestling scholarship to study at Midland University in Fremont, Nebraska.

His father Bryce said in the documentary that he and his mother Ricci were not aggressive parents, but they allowed him to because he loved him so much.

But his mother admitted that she was competitive and loved seeing her son win.

“He’s like our little beast,” he said. “He does things that other kids don’t want to do and couldn’t do if they tried.

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“People who don’t fully understand weightlifting are very critical of him. They think kids shouldn’t be lifting heavy weights, but I’m sure what he’s doing is safe.”

Other children featured in the documentary included 11-year-old Bo Ice and her eight-year-old brother Cap from Roanoke, Virginia.

His father, Bobby, talked about how he woke his kids up at 8 a.m. every day to work out and covered them in fake suntan lotion and oil before bodybuilding shows.

“Some would say putting oil on your kids is weird, but I don’t,” he said.

“This is a competition.”

Another of the featured families was former Mr Universe Phillip Ricardo and his sons Ethan, 11, and Sanali, eight.

Their father, a retired Marine Corps sergeant major and professional natural bodybuilding champion, said he wanted his sons to follow in his footsteps.

“I use the military-style training I learned in the marine core with my kids,” he admitted.

“Our kids like bodybuilding mainly because they see their parents doing it. Being fit and healthy is a lifestyle for us.”