str8flexed’s BodyBlog

This past weekend Dr. Joe Klemczewski held his 2nd annual Fantasy Camp.  It is only available for his clients.  Included in the camp were 3 time World Champion and 2007 Team Universe MW runner up Dave Goodin (possibly the most successful natural bodybuilder of all time), 2006 World Champion Jon Harris, 2007 World Champion Jim Cordova, WNBF Pro Duke Bell, and WNBF Pro Mary Bell.  Joe also invited the crew of Pro Edit (the same crew that shoots and edits my episodes of Inside the Life on bodybuilding.com) to shoot a DVD of the camp.  Joe had me down so that I could conduct interviews of the pros for the DVD.  It was a great time.  Even though I didn’t get to train with any of the guys, it was a great time.  I got to see Dave again, who was one of my inspirations growing up in bodybuilding.  I got to meet Jon Harris finally, who I’d known through the british bodybuilding message boards for a few years.  I’ve known Jim for a while but he’s always fun to hang out with and Duke and Mary were really cool and I can’t wait to see them again.  As always, hanging out with Joe is great.
What I thought was really cool about the camp was that you had 5 top pro natural athletes, 3 of which who have won world titles, as well as two of the bigger prep guys involved in natural bodybuilding and there was absolutely no display of egos at all the entire weekend.  At one point in Joe’s seminar I was asking him questions, as well as the rest of the pros there.
Even though I am working on my PhD and am a pro, I am not so arrogant to believe that I can’t learn things from these guys.  Likewise, routinely they would all be asking each other questions.  Jon Harris, who lost his title to Jim Cordova last year, was actually giving Jim advice at one point and vice versa.  Can you ever see Jay Cutler & Ronnie Coleman trying to give advice and help each other out?  I don’t think so.  I thought it was a great display of sportsmanship and what bodybuilding truly should be about!

Probably the highlight of the weekend for me was hanging out with Joe, Mary, Duke, Dave, Jon, and Jim as well as the rest of Joe’s clients on Saturday night.  Not only did we all go out and have a great time, I realized that there was not one person at the camp that I even remotely disliked, I really enjoyed everyone there.  I found myself even a little star struck, I was hanging out with 3 world champions, including arguably the most successful natural bodybuilder ever in Dave Goodin, and it was just like I was hanging out with friends I had known for years.
It was a bit surreal.  At the end of the day I am still a huge fan of natural bodybuilding and it really was a great experience for me.  They are all great role models and I encourage you all to get the DVD when it comes out as well as watch the episodes to get to know these guys better.  In the meantime, please check out their websites…

Dr. Joe: http://www.thedietdoc.com
Dave Goodin: http://www.davegoodin.com
Jon Harris:http://www.jon-harris.net
Mary Bell: http://www.centerstagefigures.com/home/
Jim Cordova: http://www.jimcordova.com (coming soon)

Duke does not have a website, but if he ever puts one up I will let you all know!

here is a link for pictures: http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&fr
iendID=10157045&albumId=1407879

check out the pics on page two, they are from saturday night… great time.

-Layne

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 10th, 2008 at 11:28 am and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.