From the intro to a profile in the Seattle Times about body builder Jordan Rannfeldt. In the picture, Rannfeldt, who has a condition similar to cerebral palsy, works out at the YMCA.Some might say it can't be done, that a little guy with a puppy-dog smile cannot walk into a gym and empower everyone else around him. But Bothell's Jordan Rannfeldt is a shining example of what a guy can do when he puts his mind to it and nobody tells him any different.
Since spring of last year, when his father died, this winsome 23-year-old has bulked up like one of those World Wrestling Federation fighters he likes to watch, embracing a regimen of curls, low rows and shoulder shrugs.
"He's really a testament to what willpower can do," says Talon Vazquez, an aerospace quality-control employee who met Jordan at the Northshore YMCA two years ago. "There's so many things that he overcomes every day."
What makes his feat remarkable is that Rannfeldt, like his younger sister, Ashley, has a genetic neurological disorder similar to cerebral palsy that has left him developmentally delayed and physically disabled. He also has scoliosis, with a 60-degree curve in his spine. The muscles in his lower trunk are underdeveloped, his movement unsteady and his motor skills hampered. He reads at a third-grade level.
His balance is poor; every so often he falls. It's hard for him to write or use silverware. Not that he lets any of this stop him.
"I've seen him change from this scrawny little guy to this young man," says fellow gym member Heather Stark. "One day he came around the corner with his walker and was wearing one of those tight shirts, and I told him, 'Geez, Jordan, you look like one of those guys who should be on the cover of a magazine.' "
More significantly, he's now occasionally able to ditch the walker he's been using since junior high.
"He would have to take it to each lifting station," says Vazquez, 24. "Now he leaves it at the door and picks it up on his way out... . If he goes nowhere with this bodybuilding thing and the only thing that comes out is that he can walk without that walker, he's already won."
"He's probably put on 30 pounds of muscle," says Dr. Howard King, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon who worked with Rannfeldt for about a decade. "His ability to get around, and his confidence, has just exploded. He's an inspiration to us all."Rannfeldt takes it all in stride. When he talks, his voice is staccato and slightly high-pitched, in that didja-ever-notice kind of way. His head tilts and his eyes drift dreamily upward, with a smile on the verge of mischief.
"I just keep going," he says. "Like the energy bunny."
