SACO — Rudy Oberzan pushes through two more repetitions of seated chest presses. As he squeezes his chest muscles, he begins talking to himself.

“Breath. Think of working the chest. Focus on the chest,” he says. “Concentrate. Work through the muscle.”

He finishes his last repetition with a gut-wrenching roar, gets up from the seat with sweat dripping from his brow, breathes heavily and walks over to his next exercise. He adjusts the weights and begins the same process that he has just completed. It is last workout before one of the biggest events of his adult life as he puts the finishing prep work in before Sunday’s Jay Cutler Bodybuilding Classic in Boston.

Oberzan, 40, has overcome many obstacles to get to this event.

He began bodybuilding as a high school freshman at Thornton Academy. He liked it so much that he started entering competitions. In 1990 he won a Maine title. A week later, he almost died.

“I got into a car with a friend and didn’t realize he had been drinking,” he said. “I began screaming for him to stop the car, but he didn’t. He missed a turn and that was the last thing I remembered.”

The car in which Oberzan was riding flipped four times. He broke several bones, tore 80 percent of his muscle from his right-anterior deltoid and had a plate put into his left arm. The doctors told him he would never weight lift again.

Oberzan, who credits the shape his was in through bodybuilding with saving his life, didn’t listen to the doctors.

He spent a year away from the gym and then returned. His mother, Leah Aranovitch, a former real estate broker who became a champion bodybuilder herself, said Oberzan had lost all the muscle he had worked so hard to gain. It didn’t stop him.

“He was determined to workout and train again,” she said. “When he went back to the gym he didn’t have any strength in his right deltoid so he tied a weight to his shoulder with a rope to help him lift. If you didn’t know him you would’ve thought that he was a beginner in the gym who didn’t know what he was doing. It was a tough time for him.”

Tough time, yes, but Oberzan didn’t stop training. Slowly he got his body back into relatively good shape and entered another bodybuilding competition. He didn’t score well, especially for a man that was used to winning. That was 16 years ago and he hasn’t competed since.

“You need to be in top condition and shape to compete,” Oberzan said. “I tried hard, but I had a lot to overcome.”

He dabbled with weightlifting throughout the past 16 years keeping it a part of his life. How could he not? He loves the sport. He loves how it makes him feel. Then, eight months ago, he and his brother Zach Oberzan made an independent film together. Rudy saw it after the filming and didn’t like what he saw.

“I was fat,” he said. “I was embarrassed with how I looked. I was 260 pounds. That wasn’t me.”

He did something about it. Sitting down with his mother and his girlfriend, Lauri Palmer, he decided he would train to compete again.

He trained for the Mr. Maine contest earlier this year, but it was canceled. Rudy being Rudy, he decided he would enter the Jay Cutler Classic.

The event is named after the former Mr. Olympia and attracts some of the best bodybuilders in the world.

“I’m concerned for him,” said Aranovitch, who placed third one time in the New England Classic. “This is a different game. These are some of the best competitors in the world. The competition will be difficult, but Rudy has the will and I think he’s in the best shape of his life.”

Oberzan agrees with his mother.

“Your muscles don’t really peak until 35,” he said. “When I was younger I wasn’t fully developed. I feel now that I am in the best shape of my life and the biggest I have ever been.”

Oberzan is 5-10 and as of Thursday weighed 217 pounds. His weight fluctuates from 217 to 225.

If he stays between 215-224, he can compete in the heavyweight division. If he weighs in at 225 he must compete in the super heavyweight division.

If he does have to compete with the biggest competitors, he says he might have an edge.

“I might not be as big as them, but I could look leaner and more developed,” he said. “They might be carrying more water weight and might not look as cut. Whatever happens, happens.”

He will compete in three categories. The master’s division, the novice division and the men’s open.

He enters the event with the same mindset with which he trains.

“When I’m training I concentrate on one rep at a time. I let the lifting come to me and I don’t try to force it,” he said. “I’m a quick learner and I listen to my body as I train. I feel the direction I need to train in.”

He teaches that same philosophy to his clients who come to him and his mother through their personal training business Body Firm. He and his mother train clients out of his childhood home where he turned part of the downstairs into a gym.

That’s where he has spent most of his days preparing for Sunday’s event.

He doesn’t know what will happen during the competition, but he said he knows he has trained harder than he ever has to prepare for this competition.

“Just to be there is great,” he said. “If I place, great. If I come in top three, even better. If I win, then, wow.”

Don’t put anything past Rudy Oberzan.