CINCINNATI -- A year ago Saturday, Rockies first baseman Todd Helton returned to the lineup skinny after missing two weeks with a stomach ailment.

The difference between then and now is striking. Today's Helton could easily push around last year's Helton, thanks to renewed health and a new training regimen that started last offseason and continues.

Helton is listed at 210 pounds, but by the time he returned from acute terminal ileitis -- an infection at the end of the small intestine -- he was below 200, and playing through summer heat, couldn't regain the weight.

During the offseason, Helton went on an Olympic weightlifting program. He arrived this spring with more bulk than ever.

Helton also has some healthy offensive numbers -- a .372 batting average that includes a .480 mark since April 25, and a .504 on-base percentage that entered Friday second in the National League to the Giants' Barry Bonds.

Daily baseball has trimmed him some, but Helton is paying attention to his eating and sticking to a plan to maintain much of the added muscle.

"I can't go as heavy and can't work out every day," Helton said Friday before the Rockies played the Reds at Great American Ball Park. "My goal is to get in 15 workouts a month, so it's every other day, basically. Or with the [game] schedule, maybe four days in a row and then three days off. I've stayed pretty close."

Helton has modified the workout.

He'll still perform a power clean, lifting a heavy barbell from the floor to chin level in a curling motion. Snatches -- where the lifter pulls a heavy barbell from the floor and brings it above his head while he is in the squatted position, then stands to finish the lift -- are for the offseason.

Because Helton suffered right knee inflammation during Spring Training and has had back issues in the past, he is careful about how he uses his legs in workouts.

"You can take getting hurt out there playing, but you can't take getting hurt in the weight room before the game -- that wouldn't make too much sense," Helton said.

Manager Clint Hurdle complimented Helton on having a detailed physical plan during the offseason and since the season began. He is more pleased with Helton's production with the bat. Like all the Rockies, the home run production -- Helton hit his second homer of the season in the first inning Friday -- falls below expectations. But Hurdle isn't harping on it.

"I think it's what we've been accustomed to seeing from '98 through '04," Hurdle said. "His swing is set up to its strength, which has always been he can beat a pitcher with a good pitch away and hit a bullet into left field. He brought that to the game coming out of college.

"I think there are a couple of different reasons he might have gone away from that, but he's back there now. The ability to pull the ball when they do leave something over the plate -- he's hit hard, he's hit soft, he's hit from line to line -- and the power is going to come when the pitches present themselves. They can be long line drives that get hit out of the park."

On the Rox: Second baseman Jamey Carroll sat while Omar Quintanilla started for the second time in three games Friday. Carroll snapped an 0-for-23 skid with a hit Wednesday, but has clearly struggled since having to play regularly in place of Kazuo Matsui. "He's in a different place," Hurdle said of Carroll. "This is the first time in his career he's on edge. He's got a different contract [two years, $4 million] and sometimes I think there are challenges with any player. They might view themselves differently. I don't know if that's going on." ... Quintanilla, who went 1-for-4 in his 2007 Rockies debut on Tuesday night against the Giants, is listed at 5-foot-9, yet his key to success is being shorter -- with his hitting mechanics, that is. "I tried to shorten my stride up and put more barrel on the ball," he said. "I tried to work at staying inside the ball, instead of having that big old swing around it." Quintanilla's 2006 Major League season ended at Cincinnati's Great American Ball Park, when he fouled a pitch off his right shin on July 15. Immediately after he came off the disabled list, he was optioned to Triple-A Colorado Springs.

Injury update: Right-hander Ramon Ramirez, on the disabled list with a sprained elbow, threw 20 pitches to hitters in a full-speed bullpen session at the training complex in Tucson, Ariz., on Thursday. He is scheduled to pitch an inning Monday in an extended Spring Training game.

Right-handers Rodrigo Lopez and LaTroy Hawkins, both out with forearm strains, will each throw bullpen sessions in Denver this weekend. Matsui has resumed baseball activities and is jogging.

Up next: Right-hander Aaron Cook (0-1, 3.83 ERA) will start for the Rockies against Reds right-hander Aaron Harang (4-0, 4.23) on Saturday at 5:10 p.m. MT.