Cauzinho Neto, a muscular 12-year-old boy from Brazil, has become famous for both his impressive physique and his grueling training regimen, which apparently puts most adults to shame. The young boy only began hitting the gym 2 years ago, under the watchful eye of his father, himself a fitness enthusiast. Cauzinho is already seen as a CrossFit prodigy, able to deadlift more than twice his own body weight and do 700 ab crunches a day. While most 12-year-olds struggle to get out of bed for school, Cauzinho gets up at 5:30 a.m. every day for a 3-mile run and a few dozen sit-ups. After breakfast, he goes to school, and after finishing his homework he puts in another 2½ hours at the gym, doing deadlifts, squats, bench presses, and bicep curls. Cauzinho’s father said they agreed to focus on his son’s athletic career, investing in a full-blown team for him, which includes a coach, doctor, physiotherapist and a nutritionist to calibrate his training to his age in order to prevent injuries. Cauzinho weighed 73 pounds when he started training and now weighs in at 84 pounds, thanks to an increase in muscle. He is just the latest child fitness enthusiast to spark controversy online, but his parents say that with all the monitoring that’s being done by professionals, they aren’t concerned about their son's love of the gym.
