The tricep, his left one, tore a year ago this spring, and when it went, Michael Fransen could hear the soft whisper of a curtain drawing closed. He was 43 years old. He’d been a bodybuilder for 13 years. Being one for 14 … well, it looked like curtains for that.

“It happened lifting weights, of course,” he says. “I thought my bodybuilding dreams were over.”

Turns out they were only beginning.

Turns out the torn tricep that should have ended his career only ended its first act and raised the curtain on a wholly unexpected second. Fifteen months after the injury and subsequent surgery, Fransen, operations manager for the Strategic Sourcing and Supply Group at ITT, is preparing for the Indiana/Midwest States Bodybuilding show July 9 at the Arts United Center downtown, and beyond that something even bigger: the GNC/Muscletech NPC Teen, Collegiate and Masters National Championships in Pittsburgh on July 23.

“Biggest show of my life,” he says.

And the culmination of an unlikely saga that began in 1997 with a buddy named John Charleston, who was a bodybuilder himself and introduced Fransen to the sport that year. A regimen that took over every aspect of Fransen’s life began at that moment.

“Actually the hard part is not working out, it’s at home doing the diet and conditioning,” says Fransen, who every Sunday cooks all his food for the week – 4-5 pounds of lean ground beef, 4 pounds of turkey breast and “a boatload” of skinless chicken breasts. “You cannot get out of shape, especially when you’re 44 years old. It’s just too hard to regain what you’ve lost.”

A soft chuckle.

“Plus, I’ve got two kids and a wife who loves sweets, so to hold back on that stuff is tough. But I’ve kind of adapted the lifestyle more than I think of it as dieting.”

It also came more naturally to him than some, having wrestled in high school.

“That’s where I really learned my discipline as far as diets,” he says. “(Bodybuilding) is a learning curve as far as diet and posing and how you’re body takes in carbs, and how much cardio it takes. It doesn’t happen overnight.”

Certainly not for him. Fransen started out as a lightweight (154 pounds), moved up to 174 1/4 and then to 198 1/4 . At the moment, Fransen, who wrestled at 112 pounds in high school, checks in at around 215.

“I’m probably in the best condition of my life right now,” he says.

And he owes it, oddly, to the injury that nearly ended it all for him.

It forced him, first of all, to concentrate on working the uninjured side of his body, something he began doing two days after his surgery. After he did that, he began rehabbing the surgical side. And because he was already in good shape generally, and following a strict diet, once he did recover, the gains simply came.

“It took almost a year for me to recover, but since then I’ve made some great bounds,” he says.

Not that the Masters National won’t be a formidable challenge.

“The judging is very tough. There’s usually quite a few competitors,” says Fransen, who, in addition to his ITT job, is taking classes at Indiana Tech and gets up at 5 a.m. to do his cardio work at Spiece Fitness, one of his sponsors. Charleston Services Inc., Patriot Tire and Solar Tan also sponsor him.

“Spiece Fitness has never had a member compete at this level, and I feel much honored to be the first,” Fransen says. “I have one goal for myself, and that is to be in the best shape of my life at the ‘young’ age of 44. No matter how well I place in this show, if I walk off the stage knowing in my mind that I gave it my all, I will be very pleased.”

bensmith@jg.net