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MOREA CHIROPRACTIC WELLNESS CENTER Specializing in Chiropractic for all ages, Nutritional Supplementation, Massage Therapy and much, much more! Our Mission is to help as many families in our lifetime by loving, giving, and serving.
Wed, Jun 30, 2010 BY C.E. SIKKENGA FRUITPORT — Standing under the bright lights on stage at the Great Lakes Iron Man Natural Bodybuilding competition Saturday night, Fruitport chiropractor Dr. Mike Morea thought about his competitors, some barely half his age. Instead of feeling out of place, he was filled with pride, especially after hearing his family's cheers from the audience. For Morea, 40, whose patients call him "Dr. Mike," it represented a pinnacle in what some would consider a much younger man's sport — one he had had all but abandoned nearly a decade earlier after placing third in the Southern National Bodybuilding Championships in 2001 while a chiropractic student at Life University in Atlanta.
On Saturday, his family didn't just watch him compete. The saw him win. Morea took first place in the Open Light Heavyweight division at Saturday's event held on campus at the University of Equally important to him, he won the respect of his fellow competitors while setting an example for his children and his patients by doing things the right way. Natural bodybuilding competitions do not allow the use of steroids or human growth hormones. "Backstage a lot of the younger guys said, 'gosh, when I'm 40, I'd love to be able to look just like you do' and to me, I think probably just as much pride as winning is actually having younger guys say they'd love to look like me at 40 years old," Morea said. "To me, that was a real testament to what bodybuilding can do for individuals or just what weightlifting can do. What physical exercise can do. It can bring (people) back from a state of feeling sometimes even hopeless to getting their life back." IN TRAINING In winning the competition, Morea wasn't simply facing the challenge of a field of younger competitors. In the nine years since he last competed, Morea, who began bodybuiding at 24, started a family (he and his wife Nicole have five-and-one-half year old triplets Brayden, Ella and Laura). He also began his practice. Although his busy life had taken him away from bodybuilding, he eventually became motivated to return to competition. "About three years ago I said 'when I'm 40 I want to be in the best shape of my life,'" said Morea, whose youthful voice, enthusiasm and Adam Lambert-esque pompadour all suggest a much younger man. "I wanted to compete at 40 and I wanted my kids to watch daddy up on stage." It wouldn't be easy. Although Morea maintained a healthy lifestyle and lifted weights regularly, he wasn't in prime competition shape. His diet, although healthy by most standards, was nowhere near as disciplined as it needed to be for competitive bodybuilding, where it is necessary to eat every two and one-half to three hours. When he started what he refers to as his "quest" last October, Morea weighed 225 pounds. By Christmas, he says he had dropped about 10 pounds and was ready for heavy training. From there, he shed about a pound a week over the next six months to reach his competition weight of 189 pounds which placed him in the upper middle range for light heavyweights. The weight loss was part of an aggressive training schedule that included two to two-and-one-half hour daily workouts at Norton Pines while accompanied by friend and fellow chiropractor Dr. Gabe O'Brien. The workouts featured weight training sessions that focused on different muscle groups each day as well as 15-45 minutes of daily cardiovascular training. More than dropping the weight and building lean muscle mass, Morea said his training regimen was designed to increase his overall fitness. "I knew that if I was going to compete against the younger guys, I needed to be in great shape," Morea said. "In the natural shows they're looking for conditioning and what they call 'cuts' or leanness more than they're looking for just size." Morea maintained his ambitious schedule, even when he and Nicole took a week-long cruise in February. Despite the temptation to relax and enjoy the round-the-clock access to food, Morea says he worked out daily and was able to watch his diet with a little help from the ship's staff. "When I went on to the cruise ship they got to know me and they would make like a 12-14 egg white omelet for me," Morea said. "By the time I went back the second time they said 'we know what you want and they brought this omelet out — literally it was a two-pound omelet. The guys on the cruise, they sort of knew me by name just by what I was eating." A FAMILY AFFAIR While Morea was making physical and dietary sacrifices, Nicole, who also serves as his office manager, assumed more responsibilities, especially on the home front. "It's a very demanding schedule for a bodybuilder," Nicole said. "You have to train at a certain time, you have to eat at a certain time so there were times where I sort of had to take over the household and take over the kids because he had to do what he needed to do and I wanted him to be able mentally be able to focus and not have the extra stressers involved because obviously what he does was already a huge physical stress." Morea credits Nicole with supporting him in many ways including driving him to Lansing for sessions with Jeff Schooler, a choreographer who helped him master the performance portion of his routine, which Morea compares to dancing or gymnastics. Schooler's studio was set up just like a bodybuilding performance stage, a perk that helped Morea develop his confidence.
"His garage had lights that were shining from the very top of the ceiling," Morea said. "Behind was a black stage curtain and behind was all mirrors so this guy had it set up just like the bodybuilding show in his garage and Nicole was filming me and I was actually holding these poses for 30 to 45 seconds. Characteristically in a show you might hold them for 10 seconds but he had me holding them for 30 to 45 seconds and Nicole was sitting there with the camera ... so every little thing I The fitness and the choreography training left Morea feeling completely prepared for the daylong competition which started with pre-judging, a process that involves a series of mandatory poses and turns that are inspected by the judges. Morea knew things were going well when the judges placed him in the center of the lineup during pre-judging — a sign that they were using him as a standard by which to measure the other competitors. WORTH THE SACRIFICE For Nicole, the win and the fact that the triplets were able to witness it more than made up for any inconveniences she endured over the last eight months. "I was just really proud," Nicole said. "The physical time, the mental time and just all the studying and the sacrifice of how he conditioned his body, I wanted it to all come together at the end and it did. It was really cool just having the kids sit in the audience and cheer dad. They watched the whole process — what he couldn't eat. They watched his dedication to his training and they were really supportive of him at a five and one half year old level." Morea was proud too, especially when he heard the triplets in the crowd. "I was smiling the whole time during pre-judging because all I could hear was 'GO DADDY' and 'GO NUMBER 24' and I heard my kids yelling — probably five or six times they were yelling my name," Morea said. "The whole time it was such a confidence boost to have my kids watching me and yelling my name. And then afterwards they came up and just gave me the biggest hug." WHAT NOW One of the judges at Saturday's event encouraged him to participate in next year's Mr. Michigan competition, but as of now, he doesn't plan to enter. However, he intends to keep training with his eye on another event. "I think two years down the road my goal is to compete again and see if I can qualify for the nationals in the master's division," said Morea, adding that before that event he'd like to put on about nine pounds and enter the event in even better shape. Even if he doesn't compete again, Morea plans to continue to stay involved in fitness."Nicole and I talked about me potentially writing a book on chiropractic," Morea said, "and just the fitness lifestyle and just giving the motivation that as we get older, we can actually get better."
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Morea enjoys a win for the ages
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