Hello
everyone and welcome to my site. My name is Layne Norton, I am
a natural pro bodybuilder who just
happens to also be interested in the science behind bodybuilding.
I am currently working on my PhD at university of Illinois specializing
in skeletal muscle protein metabolism. The
purpose of this site is to provide information about bodybuilding
and also to provide information about myself. 7:9:08 Well I know many of you have been awaiting my DVD and I'm happy to report that it is finished and available for pre-order! If you pre-order your DVD not only will you not be charged for shipping if you live in the US (if you live outside the US there will be an additional $5 fee), you will also receive a significant discount off of the retail price and your DVD cover will come to you autographed. =================================== 6:19:08 Hello everyone, We left on a cruise out of San Juan the next day on Royal Caribbean cruise line for our honeymoon. I had never been on a cruise and was blown away by how big the ship was. At least 150 feet tall, and took up several city blocks. It was a great time, the service was unbelievable and we went to Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Martin, and St. Thomas. All of the islands were awesome, but our favorite was St. Martin which had the most beautiful beaches and crystal clear water. It was somewhat sad to come back to reality, but at the same time, I still have a lot of things on my plate this year so it's back to the grind. On Monday June 9th, I am presenting a seminar entitled "Optimal protein intake and meal frequency to support maximal protein synthesis and muscle mass" at the ISSN symposium in Las Vegas at the Red Rock Resort and Casino. If you are in the area come check it out... In other news my pec is healing very well, I am actually cleared to start doing light dumbbell curls and a few other exercises. I've already gotten some size back on my right side. Today I have another appointment with my surgeon and hopefully he'll release me to do some more exercises. That's it for now, =================================== 5:9:08 In other happenings, Isabel and I leave next Saturday the 17th for our wedding in Puerto Rico. Obviously I'm really really really excited about that! It should be a hell of a time and of course I'm marrying the woman I love so it's going to be an outstanding trip. We get married on the 24th and the next day we leave out of San Juan on a Caribbean cruise. That should be a ton of fun. Please keep in mind during this period I may not be as accessible to answer questions, I plan to check my emails, but if your question can wait, please be mindful of it. I'm more than happy to answer it when I return. In other news, I received the final edit of my dvd today from my video editor. So long as it looks good we will start production of the DVD and it should be available for purchase at the beginning of summer! A few weeks before it comes out we will start taking pre-orders for it, keep a lookout in the coming weeks for that information. That's all for now folks! =================================== 4:8:08 Hi Everyone, In other news: I recently entered a new abstract in the University of Illinois Nutritional Sciences Symposium poster competition. I won this competition last year and so I knew it would be difficult to do it again as Illinois is extremely competitive in the field of nutrition. The title of my abstract I presented was "Isonitrogenous protein sources with different leucine contents differentially effect translation initiation and protein synthesis in skeletal muscle." The short of the research was we fed subjects whey or wheat protein at 3 different total protein levels and looked at the differences in anabolic response to the meal (protein synthesis and translation factor activation). We found that whey was superior to wheat protein at stimulating protein synthesis and translation factor activation even though the total protein intake was the same. We also determined that leucine content of a meal was a better indicator of the anabolic response than total protein content. The judges for my section were very critical and asked me very insightful questions. I wasn't sure how well I had done as the judges were very critical but in the end my name was announced in first place! Until next time, ===================================
As for my recovery, I still have to wear my arm brace for 2-3 more weeks, after that I can begin physical therapy to regain my range of motion and function. Physical therapy will be grueling and frustrating she said, as I will only be able to get back very small amounts of range of motion at a time. She said it may be 4-6 months until I am ready to be cleared for lifting. I am not worried about that though, I am still cleared to work legs! So legs it is! I am going to purchase special squat bar that allows me to keep my hands in front of me while squatting so I can begin squatting during physical therapy once my brace is off. To this point I have not lost more than about a pound since the original injury and there is no noticeable atrophy of my chest and arm, though I have lost some fullness. I think a big reason why I've been able to stave off atrophy is because I have stuck to my diet. So many people go off their diets when they get injured because they feel there is no point. They are wrong! When you cannot train your diet is the only thing that can save you. I have been even more strict with my food intake. I have also been dosing Xtend to get BCAAs between my meals as well as HMB and both of these have been shown to reduce muscle protein breakdown, so I feel they have also aided me in holding onto my size. Overall I'm very happy and encouraged by how well the surgery went. Each doctor tried to talk me out of surgery but I did my own research and knew that surgery was the only chance I would have to regain most of my strength, functionality, and symmetry. The surgeon himself said he thought surgery might not do anything at all. I told him that I loved bodybuilding and lifting weights and if it even just gave me 5 or 10% more functionality, strength, and made it look a little better, it was worth it for me. After the surgery he told Isabel he was surprised he was able to do anything at all, but I had read many medical case studies on this surgery and knew that in most cases the surgery does help things, and sure enough it looks like it did. I sure hope you all are ready for the comeback... -Layne =================================== 3:17:08 Hello everyone, I thank you all for your support. In better news check out my latest article in the April edition of Ironman Magazine about occlusion training on page 102. Gabe and Jacob Wilson of Abcbodybuilding.com along with myself explain the science and practical application of this unique training technique. I hope you enjoy the article. Until next time, ===================================
Hello everyone, Now onto more not so great news. As many of you already know, two weeks ago I injured myself while bench pressing. I went to the ER that night and the doctor believed it was a strained pec. Unfortunately one week later I could clearly see a deformity in my right pectoral. Since that point I have been to a doctor, who referred me to an orthopedic, who referred me to get an MRI done. The MRI revealed a full thickness tear of the pectoral major at the muscle:tendon junction. Unlike most pec tears where the tendon tears off the bone and can easily be reattached, this is not that simple. A soft tissue tear is much more difficult to repair. I am scheduled for surgery this Friday with a great surgeon who also works on many of the Chicago Bears so I am happy to be working with him. Unfortunately, he also feels that I may have tore the muscle in the muscle belly as well, which cannot be repaired (imagine it as trying to sew hamburger meat back together, you can't do it). Best case scenario the surgery will moderately improve my strength and moderately improve the deformity. Unfortunately, there is also the possibility that the surgery may not help at all. All I can do is hope that the tear is somewhat repairable. I know there are millions of things worse in this world than a pec tear. I also know that overall in life I am a very lucky guy. I'm in graduate school studying what I love and I'm marrying my dream girl. At the same time, I LOVE bodybuilding and it means so much to me. The idea of having a bodypart being deformed that I worked SO HARD on is very disappointing. The hardest thing is this is all out of my hands. The surgery either helps or it doesn't, my work ethic, my drive, that cannot help fix me. All I can do is hope, so that's what I'll do. I have already received so many emails and messages from people wishing me well and I appreciate that very much. Rest assured, if there is anyway at all to come back from this 100% I will find it. After my surgery I will have my right arm in a sling for at least 10 days so if I do not respond as quickly to your emails please try to understand. I will update my blog after the surgery to let everyone know how it went. Thanks to all of you for all your support now and over the course of my career, I truly appreciate it. -Layne =================================== 1:28:08 Just a quick blog update for you all. Please check out my shoulder training article in the March Issue of Ironman Magazine on page 118. If you like the article, let them know. Positive feedback helps keep the magazines interested in my articles. I hope you all enjoy it, you can check out a preview of it here: Thanks! =================================== 1:23:08 Hello all, I hope this new year has started off as well for you all as it has for me. I am unbelievably busy right trying to do all my research, plan my wedding, prep my clients, film new episodes for the webcast, submit more articles to magazines, and oh yea... lift my ass off! I'm not going to complain though, it's a very good thing to be this busy and if I wasn't I would probably be doing something wrong! One project that recently finished up was my first DVD. The filming is all finished and we are now in the process of sorting it out and getting it edited into an awesome DVD. I hope to have a hundred or so copies to bring with me to the Arnold Classic and after that they will be mass produced for online purchase. Obviously this is very exciting for me and something I hope many people get a lot of information and help from. Speaking of videos, make sure you check out Scivation's new site http://www.scivationvideos.com where you can check out vids of me, Kurt, Marc, Derek and other members of Team Scivation lifting like madmen and even some videos from stage! Another thing that I wanted to let you all know about was the fact that I decided I am going to compete again! That's right, my competitive nature has gotten the better of me and I just cannot stand it any longer! However, I will not be doing a bodybuilding show. Instead I am going to try my hand at raw drug-tested powerlifting! I am still a ways off from my first pro bodybuilding show but powerlifting is something that I sort of do anyway, and doing a meet just requires me to show up and do my thing in front of people. So these past few weeks I have been incoperating more powerlifting techniques (namely westside barbell techniques) into my training without totally abandoning my bodybuilding training. I have also been trying to get an idea of my raw maxes on each lift. Over these past two weeks my personal bests have been as follows: Bench - 365 These are all raw lifts, no suits or straps, just wraps and a belt. On all these lifts I still felt like I had another 10-20 lbs left but I did not want to push it too hard maxing in my first couple weeks of powerlifting. I must say that the idea of competing has really gotten me re-invigorated. I cannot wait to get into the gym everyday to smash personal records! -Layne =================================== 2007 OCB AWARDS -> Here 1:7:08 Finally I traveled back to Evansville to help conduct interviews with the film crew at Dr. Joe Klemczewski's Natural Bodybuilding Fantasy Camp. The fantasy camp is held every year for Dr. Joe's clients. For a fee they get to spend the weekend in Evansville and train with some of the best natural bodybuilders in the world. This year's camp featured 2 former WNBF world champions in Dave Goodin and John Harris as well as Jim Cordova, the current WNBF world champ. Top WNBF figure pro Mary Bell and her boyfriend, WNBF Pro Duke Bell also were instructors at the camp. My function was to interview them for a DVD that Joe will be selling later in the year as a documentary about the weekend. Some of the footage we took will also be appearing on my show "Inside the Life of a Pro Natural Bodybuilder" on bodybuilding.com so watch for it in the coming months! The weekend was unreal! As many of you know, Dave Goodin was one of my bodybuilding idols when I first got into bodybuilding and getting to hang out with him for the weekend was a real treat. 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. 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. Dr. Joe: http://www.thedietdoc.com Duke does not have a website, but if he ever puts one up I will let you all know! In the meantime, I have big things in store for 2008 so get ready, it's going to be a hell of a year for myself, my family, and Scivation. -Layne
=================================== 12:6:07 Hello everyone, Ahh winter. Snow on the ground. A chilly breeze. This holiday season allow yourself to enjoy the holidays, but do so in moderation. One slice of pie won't kill you, but eating the whole thing WILL definitely do damage. There is no reason you can't enjoy small treats, but when small treats become cheat days... don't wonder why your ass is jiggling like a bowl full of jelly, because you should know! Happy holidays to everyone. I hope you have a safe & happy holidays with the people you love and care about. -Layne ===================================
11:26:07 I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving. I know I sure did. It's always great to spend time with friends and family... and of course eat a lot of mom's home cookin'! This past month has been pretty exciting for Isabel and I as wedding planning is starting to shift more into our focus. The contest season is over for the most part and looking back I am very happy with how it went for everyone on the team. Now enjoy the holidays! -Layne
=================================== 11:2:07 What's up gym rats? Been a while since my last blog as I have quite a few irons in the fire at the moment. One of the big things I am looking forward to this month is the OCB Midwest States in Dekalb, IL on November 17th. Isabel and I have been involved with helping/planning the show in some form or another since it's inception in 2005. This year it will be a pro qualifier and primed to bring in some big talent. The other people entering as our team will be Carissa Meyers, Nicole Lindblad, and Darrell Sneed. Carissa is certainly a front runner for the figure pro card. This will only be her third show ever, but she has a ton of talent and great conditioning. Nicole will be entering the women's bodybuilding portion of the show. Until next time, =================================== 10:11:07 What’s up people? I hope everyone is well. It’s getting colder outside but the contest season is really heating up as the BIG shows are just around the corner, so obviously contest prep topics are something constantly on my mind. This past weekend I had a client call me and tell me that he felt he was holding water. Now typically I think that 99% of people who say they are ‘holding water’ just aren’t in shape, but I knew he was in shape, but I figured he was probably paranoid. But he was very convinced that he was in deed not nearly as tight as he had been. So what do we do? What can we do if we get to the day before or dare I say the day of the show and for whatever reason we are holding water? Most people would say ‘cut water’ or ‘take a diuretic. I would have to disagree with that. What you have to remember is that even if you are holding water under the skin, cutting water is not the best way to get rid of it. If you are holding water under the skin & you cut it then you are just going to increase aldosterone even more and reabsorb more water from the nephrons into the interstitial space. When you cut water or take a diuretic you will not be able to control where you take it from… it is going to come out of muscle and out of the subcutaneous tissue; the problem is it's going to come out in the same ratio contained by the two areas. If we think about Le Chatelier's principle we can start to make sense of it. For those of you who haven’t had a lot of chemistry, Le Chatelier's principle can be used to predict the effect of a change in conditions on a chemical equilibrium. It can be summarized as: “If a chemical system at equilibrium experiences achange in concentration, temperature, volume, or total pressure; the equilibrium will shift in order to partially counter-act the imposed change.” For example, let’s say we have 2 reactions: A ----> B-----> C. If you remove C, then you will accelerate the conversion of B to C, and also accelerate the conversion of A to B. PULLING the reaction forward. Now if you reduce the amount of A, then the conversion of A to be will slow and therefore, the movement of B to C will also slow in order to maintain equilibrium. By the same token, let's look at water distribution assuming A is water in the muscle, B is water in the interstitial space, and C is water in the kidneys. If you take a diuretic to increase water excretion, (in our example, removal of C) you will therefore accelerate the removal of B (interstitial) but you will also accelerate the removal of A at the same rate to maintain equilibrium. The ratio of water in each compartment stays the same, all you have managed to do is reduce water in all departments and flatten yourself out. So what happens if we cut water? If you cut water then you are reducing the input of A into the system. This will reduce the movement of A into B, and will subsequently reduce the movement of B into C. In this case the kidney totally restricts it’s excretion of water due to the reduced input in order to maintain equilibrium. Again the distribution of water in the compartments is unchanged, there is just less water everywhere and so you are just flatter everywhere. =================================== 9:24:07 There is a story I want to share with you all. I was at the store a few nights ago buying groceries with my fiancée Isabel. We were in the check out line and a young kid, about 16 years old, was our cashier. We had just come from the gym and still had our workout gear on; I was being quite obvious with my bodybuilding.com tight under armor shirt on. The kid looked at me and asked softly, “Sir, are you a bodybuilder?” I smiled back at him and replied jokingly “Yep, what gave it away???” He smiled and continued to scan our items. After a few moments he looked at me and asked, “Is it fun?” Of course my reaction was “Yea it’s a lot of fun, if you make it fun. If it was not fun, I probably wouldn’t do it.” Well I got news for you… if you don’t like bodybuilding, THEN DON’T DO IT! I’m tired of hearing pissing and moaning from people who don’t truly love the sport. Why would you do something you hate? Bodybuilding isn’t for everyone. Just because you don’t enjoy it, that doesn’t make you soft, or a coward, or anything like that, it just means you don’t dig the lifestyle. Personally I love what I do and if I didn’t, I wouldn’t do it. Sure enough though, I see plenty of people lamenting what they do day in and day out in the gym. It is almost as if they workout and diet out of some kind of fear. That is no way to live. If you can’t have fun with something you do, then you simply aren’t going to work hard at it. Is bodybuilding tough? You bet your ass it is. But I love it. I love bodybuilding. I don’t want to hear you’re whining or complaining. If you don’t like it, if it’s not fun for you, if you wake up everyday not looking forward to your workout or what you have to do, then get out. Do something that makes you happy. Yes bodybuilding is fun for me. I’ve learned how to integrate it into my life; I don’t let it dominate my life. There is a difference. So when that kid asked me if bodybuilding was fun, I didn’t have to lie to him. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll try it out for himself. Layne Norton =================================== 9:19:07 The year sure is going fast and the fall shows are creeping up on us. I always enjoy attending shows for various reasons, most of all being I just love bodybuilding and I am a fan of all bodybuilding shows. September 22nd in Indianapolis,IN at the OCB Indiana Natural October 27th in University Park, IL at the NANBF USAs November 17th in Dekalb, IL at the OCB Midwest States. These are three of the premier natural shows in the midwest region so if you have a chance, make sure you check them out and if you are a competitor you should give some thought to competing in one or two of them. Hope to see you all soon, =================================== 9:1:07 What is your excuse? Everyone seems to have one. Where is the personal accountability? Have we all developed such fragile egos that we can't fathom the thought of taking responsibility when things DON'T go well. I've got news for everyone out there. 99.999% of the time, if you fall short of your goals, it is time to STOP pointing the finger elsewhere and look in the mirror. The extra calories in your fish oil capsules didn't stop you from getting to 6%; it was the binge out on pizza two weeks ago. How you were holding water had nothing to do with your placing low at your contest, it was the fact you didn't give yourself enough time to diet and started out with too much bodyfat. And no Mr. Couch potato, you DO have the time to workout, you just choose not to. So when you look in the mirror and see your beer belly hanging over your belt and can't see (amongst other things) your toes, you need to look right back in that mirror and put the onus on yourself to get in shape. In the end, the world isn't going to hand you anything on a silver platter, but on the same token, the world isn't out to get you either. You make your own fate, your own success. If you are lazy, then your fate will be... average or less, but just remember, it is no one else's fault other than your own. In the end either you want to improve or you don't... period. Layne Norton IFPA & NGA Pro =================================== 8:7:07 What's happening everyone? I hope summer is treating you well. Mine is going very well. Research is keeping me busy in the lab as always but things are going quite well. As some of you may have heard I have started the wheels in motion for putting an offseason training/nutrition DVD out there. It will cover off season nutrition & training, my bulk/cut cycles, my power/hypertrophy training, my cardio regiment, and of course will have hard core lifting with tossing some weights around. I am looking for ideas for a title and I'm also looking for ideas on unique content you'd like to see.Please sign up for my forum and post your ideas on the thread dedicated to this topic. If I decide to use someone's title they propose, I will give them 3 months of free nutritional consultation as well a signed DVD. Contest season is also in full swing now and my clients are keeping me quite busy, which is the way I like it. So far it's been very successful with a few overall titles already in the books for a few of them. Since I'm not competing for a few years I have to live vicariously through my clients, but I really enjoy it. I even find myself getting nervous on Saturdays when I have clients competing because it still feels like 'game day' for me. One thing I always fine funny is the looks my clients get at their shows. None of my clients water deplete, and most of them drink 1-2 gallons of water on show day. They always get strange looks and people asking them if they are concerned about 'retaining water.' I know what you are thinking "but Layne, at my last show a judge said I needed to be drier" or "everyone tells me I just need to lose the water." Well I'm not here to make you feel better about yourself, I'm here to help you do better at your next show. And the truth is that people are telling you that you are 'holding water' because they don't want to hurt your feelings. The fact of the matter is that you weren't 'holding water' you just weren't lean enough. Period. Most people don't realize that the big reason all these complex final week protocols came about was simply marketing from pre-contest prep 'gurus'. If it was as simple as just getting shredded, how would these guys stay in business? They make their clients feel like they 'need' them because these guys have their clients manipulating fifteen hundred variables in the last week. How could they possibly do that on their own? And thus, they feel like they need their 'guru'. You would be surprised at how many clients I probably lose because my approach is so simple, but I'm not in this to make money dishonestly. The secret is simple, give yourself enough time to diet, be honest with yourself about how much bodyfat you have to lose, and GET SHREDDED! Period. Til next time, ==================================== 7:25:07 ==================================== 7:4:07 What’s
up guys? Been a while since I clocked in and MAN have I been busy.
What with the web cast at I hope you all have a great 4th of July and more importantly, a safe 4th of July. -Layne ==================================== 6:18:07 What’s up everyone? Hope this blog finds you well. I want to thank you again for visiting my site. The feedback thus far has been really really good and I appreciate it. Last week I was AWOL a bit as I was out in Las Vegas presenting some of my research as a poster at the ISSN symposium. There was a good mix of meatheads and science geeks there so you know I enjoyed it. As much as I enjoy attending shows like the Arnold and the Olympia I do get tired of the questions like “ay bro wutz gud 2 get me big ‘n’ ripped yo.” At the same time I also can tire of research symposiums like Experimental Biology where many people don’t think research in protein metabolism is that worthwhile as the majority of nutritionists feel that protein is over consumed (someone hand me a dumbbell to hit them with). So I enjoyed the ISSN symposium. People were insightful and asked the right questions by and large. They also kept the research in the context of enhancing performance and muscle mass for the elite athlete/bodybuilder rather than the context of trying to apply it to the general couch potato which is what is typically done at science symposiums. There was some very interesting research presented there that I look forward to seeing published in the coming months. And oh yea… who doesn’t like a few nights out in vegas? Til next time, ====================================
Hey
everyone, I thought I'd take this time to update you all as to what
is going on with me personally and professionally. As many of you
know I am currently in the midst of a long LOOOOOOONG off season from
competing. As of now my main focus is completing my PhD thesis research
as well as getting married to my girlfriend of three years, Isabel.
I am still training very hard and trying to make improvements in anticipation
of stepping on the natural pro stage for the first time. I have still
managed to stay very busy this off season. Until next time,
Well the site has been up around a week now and so far the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I want to thank each and every one of you for visiting my site and checking it out. Your support means the world to me. Please email me any questions you have regarding nutrition, supplementation, and training and if you may find it in the bioblog. Now onto this week’s blog… It is summertime and the contest season is fully upon us. Being somewhat of a veteran competitor I get asked quite a bit about competition by potential competitive bodybuilders. One trend I am starting to notice is that many of these potential competitors often say “well I plan to start dieting to see how it goes and if all goes well I’ll do (insert show name) show.” I hate to be the bearer of bad news but a bodybuilding competition is not something you just casually do, especially if you expect to win. If you want to have a chance in the world you either have to decide if you are IN or you are OUT. If you haven’t fully committed yourself to a show I can all but guarantee that you will back out when things at work get stressful, or when you start getting terrible hunger pangs, or you start feeling small in your clothes, etc. If you want to do a show, then do it. Mail in your entry form 6 months ahead of time so there is no backing out. In the words of Yoda “Do or do not, there is no try.” Yoda would have made one hell of a bodybuilder… other than his height issue. Until next time, train insane. -Layne
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