When Kyle Hopkins pushes his left hand into the bench-press machine, counts his reps out loud then gets up to step away, he’s doing things he had to relearn. Like walking and speaking.
“Everything,” Hopkins said.
“I used to have to carry him,” said Angie Hopkins, his mom. “Brush his teeth, feed him.”
A massive stroke wracked his body at age 10. It destroyed a third of his brain and partially paralyzed his right side. So when Kyle — now a 21-year-old man flexing among the other bodybuilders during a training session in Armbrust Pro Gym in Wheat Ridge — takes to the bench press machine with his right arm, which doesn’t want to straighten at the elbow and wrist, it’s impressive.
Joel Griffin, one of his trainers and coaches, clips the Velcro cuff on Kyle’s right wrist to the machine and gives him an assist as he busts through his set. The weight is low on this side, but it doesn’t matter — Griffin is trying to help him gain back more movement and flexibility on that side. He’s also training him for his first bodybuilding competition.
This week Kyle will compete in the Warrior Classic, a two-day bodybuilding competition in Loveland. He’s been nominated for the Heart of a Warrior, a prize that goes to athletes who overcame obstacles to compete there.
Usually there are only a couple of nominees, said Michael Alexander, the founder and promoter of the Warrior Classic with his fiancee, Carol Semple. This year, though, they have six or seven, he said. In addition to Kyle, nominees include a male competitor who was in a bad car accident, another man who was in a farming accident and a woman who has a rare form of cancer.
Plus, he said, “Tyler’s competing again this year.”
Heart of a Warrior started because of Tyler Carron, who walked onto the stage at the first Warrior Classic in 2010 using prosthetic legs. Carron was one of two Berthoud High School wrestlers who lost their legs after a car accident in their senior year. Both have continued to be athletes; Carron and Nikko Landeros competed in the Paralympics on the U.S. sled hockey team.
The award was Semple’s idea, Alexander said, inspired by Carron.
“It was all started for Tyler, and we continue the tradition every year,” Alexander said.
“Stronger every day”
There were signs something wasn’t right.
Kyle’s headaches were getting worse and worse, bad enough to make him throw up. Growing up in Fort Morgan, Kyle played soccer, football and baseball. “He all of a sudden couldn’t pitch over the plate and all of a sudden couldn’t hit the ball, which wasn’t like him,” mom Angie said.
But it wasn’t adding up for the doctors.
“He was having symptoms of a stroke for a while, but he was 10, and he’d go to this doctor for a physical and he was fine.”
The stroke hit when they were at Flatiron Crossing mall. Kyle’s dad, Tom Hopkins, was out of town when it happened, Angie said. But “God let that happen when he did because we were right down the road from the hospital.”
Paramedics sped him to Avista Adventist in Louisville, where a brain surgeon rushed in to care for Kyle. “They took off his skull,” she said. “And called the priest. And called Flight for Life to Children’s Hospital.”
He was in a coma for a month. Eventually, he went back to school using a wheelchair, and he stayed with his sports teams, even though he couldn’t play.
With bodybuilding, he’s back in the game.
“I’m excited he found a sport he can do,” said Machelle Korf, a certified personal trainer who works with Kyle at Body Firm in Fort Morgan. Korf was the one who told Kyle about the competition this weekend and nominated him for Heart of a Warrior. She suggested that he train with Griffin for his show prep (and comes down to Wheat Ridge with Angie and Kyle to watch him train there every week), and she has helped him track down sponsors and pays for some of his training herself.
“He’s inspiring me now. He’s making me think outside the box — how can I train him?”
Griffin is getting creative about training him as well. The Velcro cuff on his right wrist, for example: “Nobody else really went for the right arm,” he said. Kyle’s positive attitude takes him far at the gym, Griffin said.
“Kyle falls into the category of, he’s not the ideal athlete, but he’s ideal mentally.”
Korf suggested that Kyle train with Griffin because he’s well-known as a good bodybuilding trainer, but they also have something in common. Griffin has been in some nasty motorcycle accidents. He said he escaped a “horrific outcome” in them, but he feels lasting effects from a head injury, and he’s partially blind. “We connect very well, and I can relate to some of his trauma. … I could be in his shoes.”
At Armbrust, Griffin helps hoist Kyle up to a bar so he can demonstrate his one-arm pull-ups, on his left side. Another gymgoer watches slackjawed, then comes over to praise him.
“I feel stronger every day,” Kyle said. “Just keep moving forward; you can’t move backward. You’ve got to keep moving forward.
“I had a stroke. I lost everything, but I keep moving forward.”
Jenn Fields: 303-954-1599, jfields@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jennfields
Warrior classic
When: Aug. 28-29
Where: Embassy Suites convention center, 4705 Clydesdale Parkway, Loveland
Info and tickets: http://warrior-productions.com/
