PENN TWP— Baseball and football didn't feed the need for Knoch senior Erik Christensen.

Now, bodybuilding is his new game.

Christensen, 17, plans to compete in the 2008 NPCTeenage Nationals, scheduled July 18 and 19 at the Sheraton Station Square in Pittsburgh.

Standing 6-feet-2 and weighing 230 pounds, Christensen added 45 pounds of muscle mass after deciding to give up football after his 2006 junior varsity season.

He split time at running back with then-sophomore Tim McNerney and had a few 100-yard rushing games. Christensen had not played organized football before last year.

"I had already begun working out and training my body before football,"Christensen said. "It (football) looked fun and I wanted to try it.

"I wound up losing 26 pounds during the season, developed blisters on my feet. ... It was going against what I really wanted to do."

Two years ago, Christensen picked up a copy of Flex magazine and "I just liked how they looked,"he said. "I knew I could develop that type of body."

Christensen doesn't work out at a gym nor does he have a personal trainer. He spends two hours per day, six days a week working out in the basement of his family's home.

Christensen's mother, Jen Fennell, competed in two bodybuilding events in 2002, winning the first meet she entered after only eight weeks of training.

She also set an unofficial world record at age 21, when she jumped rope 372 times in one minute.

"We never made that official. I think my mother regrets that,"Fennell said, laughing.

She only hopes her son doesn't regret his venture into bodybuilding.

"He sets his mind to something and he goes,"Fennell said. "He's always been that way. When he was 2, he moved an entire woodpile from the woods to the patio, all by himself.

"Ididn't have the heart to tell him we didn't want the wood on the patio — but that's how driven he is. I always thought he was going to pursue baseball."

Christensen began playing baseball at age 5 and gave up the sport after his sophomore year despite hitting over .400 as an outfielder and serving as Knoch's closer.

In the summer of 2004, Christensen's fastball was clocked at 76 mph while he was playing for the Beaver Valley Baseball Club. Seneca Valley senior Cory Mazzoni, a pitcher headed to North Carolina State on a scholarship, was Christensen's teammate at the time and was clocked at 73 mph.

Christensen was the only freshman to start on Knoch's varsity baseball team in 2005.

"I just didn't like it anymore," he said of baseball. "That's all I did. I played on three different teams (Beaver Valley, Cranberry Diamond Dogs, Colt League) and got tired of it."

Christensen's stepfather, Jay Fennell, is friends with Gary Udit, supervisor of the Mid-Atlantic Zone of the National Physique Committee. Udit has met Christensen and advised him to enter the Teenage Nationals.

"Genetics and physiques like his come along rarely,"Udit said. "He should be giving his mother and father big hugs because they made this happen.

"Erik has quick metabolism, which is great for building good muscular condition. He doesn't need a warm-up event before nationals. That kid is so driven and his body's responding. He's doing all the right things."

Christensen eats four whole meals a day, along with three supplemental meals, totaling between 5,000 and 6,000 calories each day.

For breakfast, he eats a cup of oatmeal, six eggs and a protein shake. He has a pound of chicken or beef and a cup of rice for lunch, then the same for dinner.

At midevening, Christensen has a can of vegetables, a salad, a can of tuna and yogurt. He downs three hamburgers and a protein shake before going to bed.

"Maintaining that diet is the toughest part of this," he admits. "I'll cut out the carbs around June to prepare for the meet."

The winner of July's competition will be flown to California for a magazine spread and will meet professional bodybuilders.

"I want to be a professional bodybuilder, hopefully by the time I'm 21 or 22,"Christensen said.

"If this is what he wants, I support him fully,"Jen Fennell said. "And I believe he'll get there."