I was fortunate enough to participate in Layne Norton's Natural Bodybuilding and Figure camp held in Tampa, FL a couple of weekends ago. It was just an incredible experience - Layne invited some of the top natural bodybuilders around, including Dave Goodin, Francisco Montealegre, John Hansen, Alberto Nunez and more. The campers got to train with the pros for three straight days, and we had some great workouts. The best part, though, was sitting through a series of seminars given by some of the best scientists doing work related to bodybuilding. This stuff was simply awesome - I listened to Dr. Jacob Wilson talk about HMB supplementation and his most recent studies regarding maintaining strength while dieting, Dr. Dominic D'Agostino talk about some of his relevant work on ketogenesis, Dr. Mike Zourdas describe optimal workout splits using non-linear periodization, Ben Esgro give an overview of the most useful bodybuilding supplements, and two Ph.D. students right down the road from me at that OTHER University in the state, Jeremy Loenneke and Chris Fahs, talk about their research on blood flow restriction. A lot of the studies referenced were still under peer review and hadn't officially seen publication yet - giving the campers a preliminary look at some of the most innovative research related to bodybuilding that anyone in the country is doing. This science-based approach to a bodybuilding camp was incredibly unique (we all even got our quad muscle density tested by Dr. Wilson's lab at the University of Tampa), and everyone who attended (including me) has really had no choice but to re-think some of their approaches to how they prepare for contests. I have since re-structured my workout split based on what I learned from Dr. Zourdas, have changed the way I incorporate blood flow restriction training (don't call it occlusion training!), and am reworking my approach to cardio. I'll try to discuss some of these in future blog posts.
One of the things that impressed me most about the camp was that even though Layne himself has a Ph.D. in nutritional sciences, and makes his living as a contest prep coach (or, as he prefers, "physique architect"), he included many people in the camp with ideas contrary to his, or, like me, have never used him for contest prep. Letting the attendees see the different ways in which many of the pros approach their off-season or how they construct their own diet was extremely useful for everyone.
Congrats to Layne and his wife Isabel on a job well done, and a big thanks to all attendees and pros / experts who made the camp so special. Although it was tough to be away from my little girl for 4 days, it was an awe-inspiring time and I look forward to going back in future years if they'll have me.
For me personally at the camp, I gave a talk about how to mesh contest prep with real life, based on my experiences between 2006-2010 when I competed at the WNBF Worlds each year while going through the tenure process at OSU. It seemed to be very well received. I also managed to set a PR in the sumo deadlift, getting 585x3. I hope to get a video of that posted on here soon. Here are some pics from the camp:
Some of the Pros / Experts
Ben Esgro lecturing about bodybuilding supplements
585 x 3!
