This Tampa 11-year-old deadlifts 200-plus pounds

Evan Pittman grunts as he lifts the bar off the floor. His face turns slightly red as he locks his knees and back and holds up the 225 pounds.

Not bad for the military folk who work out at the MacDill Air Force Base gym. But really special when you consider this: Pittman is 11, stands 4-10 and weighs in at 85 pounds.

"I'm very proud of him," says Hal Pittman, Evan's father and coach. "I am very proud of his accomplishments. He's a really dedicated and focused young man for 11 years old. He sets goals and he goes after them."

The goal of the recent workout was to tune up for Saturday's 2010 Armed Services Championship at MacDill, where Evan set three more U.S. records: in the squat (160 pounds); bench (77 pounds); and deadlift (225 pounds).

His long-term goal?

"I always think about the Olympics," Evan says.

If this were a competition, the weight that the Tampa Prep 6th grader just lifted would be a world record - his 20th. But this is just his weekly workout as he gets ready to try to add to his burgeoning collection of golden hardware and record book entries.

In addition to his 19 world records, Evan also now has set eight national powerlifting records.

But as accomplished as he is at powerlifting, the sport fills only part of his jam-packed schedule.

He has also won five state championships and two Junior Olympic Games gold medals in taekwondo Olympic sparring in the past two years and is on the diving team in his first semester at Tampa Prep. He also runs track and is an accomplished violinist and straight A student.

Evan says it was his love of taekwondo and his competitive spirit that led him to powerlifting in the first place.

"I started powerlifting to help my taekwondo and I also wanted to do well on the Presidential Physical Fitness Award at school," he says. "Powerlifting helps my speed, flexibility and agility."

His mom and dad explain that Evan's introduction to powerlifting came after his taekwondo career got off to an inauspicious start.

"He lost his first match in 45 seconds," says Evan's mom, Rebecca Feaster, a former military spokeswoman who now runs her own corporate communications firm, Feaster and Associates. "He was crying the whole way home. His father asked him if he wanted to start training and he did."

As with everything he does, Evan took to powerlifting with a sense of purpose rare in adults, let alone adolescents.

During any given week, Evan spends about 90 minutes in the gym working on powerlifting. Then there is his diving practice, plyometrics at home, outdoor taekwondo practice, violin practice, studying, church and the father-son 2.5-mile run.

"We don't do cartoons at all, we don't do television during the week," says Hal Pittman. "It's all about his training and his studies. And his music. Time management is critical. Quite honestly, he understands deliberate practice and that the harder you work, the better you are going to be."

Today, the Pittmans have some help coaching - Todd Shane, a bald, mountain of a man with muscles upon muscles who used to wrestle professionally with the WWE, along with his twin brother Mike, under the moniker Gymini.

From station to station - squat to bench press to deadlift - Shane offers the Pittmans advice. But it is with the deadlift that he really helps Evan, telling him he needed to "sit" more as he lifts.

"Usually I have been lifting with my back, which is really what I shouldn't do," says Evan, "and he told me to lift more with my legs, which is probably how it is supposed to be done."

Rebecca Feaster, for one, is happy for the help. Hal is soon heading for the war zone and she is grateful to have someone around who really knows the sport.

Aside from Shane, the Pittmans also enlist the help of Evan's doctor - routine consultations to make sure the young athlete is not doing anything to cause acute injury or long-term damage.

Still, things happen. Like all athletes, Evan has a favorite injury story.

"At first I hurt my shoulder doing a squat," he says. "I did the form wrong. We thought it was all because of the powerlifting, so we let off a little bit. But we found out it was mostly probably the violin that was doing it instead of the powerlifting."

Though Evan sports a room full of award bling, his slight stature belies his strength. So much so that sometimes, kids he meets don't believe he can lift so much weight.

"A lot of times my classmates think that I am lying, that I don't really do powerlifting," he says. "But I say I do and I say you can look me up online and find me there."

Evan has earned a solid reputation in the sport.

"Evan is a freak," says Spero Tshontikidis, whose Raw United Powerlifting is organizing the Armed Services Championship. "I mean that in the most loving way. He is one of those kids with genetics. He's got it. And that's not to take away from his hard work. His technique is good and he is very poised on the platform."

The Armed Services Championship, which kicks off at 10 a.m. Saturday, is open to anyone with a connection to the military. To Evan, it is not enough that his father is a rear admiral and director of communications for U.S. Central Command.

Even at 11, his connection is much more direct.

"Every year, for his birthday, he asks that people don't bring gifts, but donate to a military charity," says Hal. "Last year, it was USO. This year it was the Semper Fi Wounded Marines Fund. He raised over $100."

Not only is Hal Pittman proud of his son's route to the competition, he is confident as well.

"He will break records in the squat and bench press," he says. "And he will break his own deadlift record."