A story of one mans triumph over adversity appeared in the January 07, 2006 issue of the Pennsylvania publication, The Record Herald. The subject of this article is Dr. Keith McCormick, (right) a chiropractor who himself suffers from osteoporosis. The story starts off by noting that the 51 year old McCormick was once an Olympic caliber athlete, who knows that because of his condition an accident on his bicycle could shatter every bone in his body.
Dr. McCormick is well aware of his situation as he states, “I was an Iron Man competitor, Olympic athlete, a young male with no risk factors – not your typical osteoporosis patient. I was 45 and had the skeleton of a 100-year-old woman.”
In his drive to push himself, McCormick was not satisfied with the medical status quo concerning his situation. “Anything I do I go all out … I’m not going to rely on someone else. They just wanted to give me medicine. I wanted to find out why (this happened) and fix it the right way.”
In his extensive study of osteoporosis, McCormick admitted that he may have been the cause of his own problem, “I studied osteoporosis endlessly for two years. I came up with theories about why I have it and I’m trying to correct it. It’s very complicated – bone physiology is incredibly difficult and involved – in a nutshell, it came from overtraining.”
Prior to finding out about his condition, McCormick training for his first Iron Man competition in 1982 was described as hard core. He trained an average of 35 hours a week which included an average 450 miles a week on his bicycle.
Dr. McCormick’s new knowledge concerning his problem did not weaken his drive, but did temper his new training regime with some wisdom. “This time I rested more and I had an impeccable diet – no sweets, lots of fruits and vegetables and nothing too high in protein which can lead to calcium loss. My whole way of attacking dietary nutrition was an aspect I paid more attention to. I realized it’s important that if I train I need to fill my cup afterward.”
