Testing the limits

Ten years away from competitive bodybuilding did Robert Purcell's body good.

The Auburn native won his first competition in a decade on April 12 at the 11th Annual Natural Northeast Bodybuilding & Figure Pro-Am Championships in Rochester. He finished first in the middleweight category before besting the other weight class winners of the amateur/novice division in a final contest.

Purcell's victory was vindication for 12 weeks of rigid dieting and several years of laboring in the weight room of the Finger Lakes Health Center. His endurance was tested through the very end of the competition, which twice required him to cycle through a series of 12 exhausting poses.

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