LAWRENCE, Massachusetts — By day, Andover, Massachusetts, native Dr. Fred Arrigg Jr. specializes in restoring patients’ hearing and treating their dizziness problems.
His surgical work is fine, steady and precise, requiring small, careful movements with his hands.
By night, Arrigg trades his medical coat for gym clothes and a series of full-body, high-intensity workouts that find him heaving barbells over his head, knocking out sets of pull-ups and tackling the rowing machine.
Those workouts propelled the 62-year-old, Lawrence-based ear doctor to the most unlikely of stages recently — the Mr. Olympia competition.
“If I think of the top 100 possible things on my bucket list, this was not one of them,” he said.
Arrigg has always considered himself athletic, someone who worked hard to take care of himself. Two years ago, in search of something new, he joined CrossFit No Regrets in North Reading, Massachusetts, and began training with Randy Robitaille, an expert CrossFit trainer and owner of the gym.
After one year of training, he decided to find a weightlifting coach in the hopes of coming back to the CrossFit gym after the summer with a little more muscle, more experience.
Even then, he never considered the idea of competing.
But last month, Arrigg, who weighs in at 200 pounds, stepped onto a Las Vegas stage as the oldest entrant in the Olympic weightlifting portion of Mr. Olympia. The newcomer was one of about 70 participants in the overall competition, and he placed third in the 35 and older masters division.
It was Arrigg’s weightlifting coach, Ivan Rojas in Eliot, Maine, who encouraged him to enter Mr. Olympia.
Arrigg went to consult with Rojas, who has coached Olympic medalists, to see if he would be willing to work with him.
“You strong person,” Rojas told Arrigg before accepting him as a client, and they got to work almost immediately.
Not long after, Rojas floated the notion of competing.
“Compete at what?” Arrigg asked him.
Rojas answered with the obvious: weightlifting.
Arrigg took the suggestion lightly but texted his three children to share the idea. Within minutes, they were texting back with a chorus of encouragement, urging him to accept the challenge and warning him that they’d already told all their friends. All at once, they started making plans to join him in Vegas.
“On one hand we couldn’t believe it, and on the other hand it didn’t surprise us,” said Allison Arrigg, 30, a psychologist at Human Relations Service in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and the oldest of the three siblings.
She described her father as the kind of person who is all in once he puts his mind to something.
“He’s that type of guy,” she said.
Robitaille had a similar reaction to the news that the local doctor would be competing in Mr. Olympia — a mixture of surprise, and a total lack of it.
“He’s very passionate about training and health and well-being,” Robitaille said. “He’s come a long way over the past few years. He’s 10 times better than when he started.”
Preparing for Mr. Olympia
These days, Fred Arrigg works out six days per week, either doing CrossFit or pure weightlifting. He typically heads to the gym in the evening after working in the Lawrence practice that his father, the recently retired Dr. Fred Arrigg Sr., started.
Fred Arrigg joined his father in the practice in 1985, one year after graduating from Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Boston. Sister Claudia Arrigg, an ophthalmologist, came into the practice a year later, and brother Paul Arrigg, also an ophthalmologist, the year after that, forming Arrigg Eye and Ear Associates.
Fred Arrigg’s CrossFit workouts often vary from a series of push-ups and pull-ups to barbells to rowing or running, all in high-intensity, 10- to 20-minute durations. For awhile, he was following the paleo diet of whole, unprocessed foods, but now, he said he just watches his carbohydrate intake and avoids white flour and sugars. He estimates he’s gained about 3 pounds but dropped a few pant sizes throughout the whole process.
He said the regimented routine was just what he needed this past year, after the passing of his wife, Laura, last November.
“Last year was a tough year, and I think that CrossFit certainly made me physically and mentally much stronger,” he said before last month’s competition. “I work all day and exercise at night, and now I’m just having fun going to Las Vegas, something 100 percent out of my comfort zone.”
For some reason, he said, weightlifting clears his mind in a way that activities such as spinning or hiking never could.
“What yoga and meditation do for the mind and body for some,” he said, “CrossFit and weightlifting do for me.”
Robitaille said he’s incredibly proud of what Arrigg has accomplished, regardless of how he fared at Mr. Olympia.
“It’s a personal record just showing up,” he said. “We love Fred. He’s a big part of our family here.”
Proud of dad
The trip to Mr. Olympia doubled as a family vacation for the Arriggs, with all three children traveling to Las Vegas with their father for the weekend-long event.
In addition to Saturday’s competition, the Arriggs were able to pencil in a few other plans. They attended a magic show and had the chance to experience Cirque du Soleil’s “Michael Jackson ONE” production.
But the main focus for Arrigg’s children was to support their father, who was sponsored by coach Rojas’ business, Risto Sports.
Allison Arrigg said whenever the family gathers for holidays, her father tries to get her and her brothers, Tommy, 28, and David, 26, to give CrossFit a try. While she hasn’t quite joined No Regrets herself, she has joined her father for some classes and was impressed with how easily he kept up with other members more than half his age.
“I hope I’m like that when I’m 62,” she said.
This past August, Fred Arrigg did talk his kids into doing a Spartan Race in Barre, Massachusetts, with him, after his CrossFit gym formed a team. Allison Arrigg said they stuck together throughout the 5-mile race, consisting of 26 obstacles, including barbed wire and fire.
The next day, all three kids were sore. Her father, she said, felt fine.
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