Iron Scholar: Management Professor Wins Top Bodybuilding Award

University of La Verne management professor Dr. Loren Dyck traveled to Manchester, UK June 16-18 to represent the US at the INBA/PNBA World Championships for Professional Natural Bodybuilding. He came away with the title of PNBA Professional Grand Masters Bodybuilding World Champion. With 220 competitors from 22 countries, this event is the premier competition for natural bodybuilding.

Participants must pass rigorous screening to demonstrate that they are drug-free and compliant with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Code. This list of prohibited substances is extensive and includes not only anabolic steroids, diuretics, and growth hormones but also certain over-the-counter cold remedies, asthma medications, and blood pressure drugs. Competitive bodybuilding is an aesthetic sport and art form meaning that athletes are not judged by how much weight they can lift but rather the result of lifting a lot of heavy weight frequently, doing plenty of cardio, and maintaining a diet specific to their individual goals.

The judging criteria of competitor physiques includes symmetry, muscularity, definition (conditioning), and stage presence. Competitors are judged in three rounds including “relaxed” and mandatory flexed poses performed in group comparisons with other competitors and a 60-second individual posing routine to music.

Dr. Dyck’s vision is to improve the human condition in organizational life by examining what drives sustained, desired change in his teaching, research, and service, and to him, bodybuilding is another avenue to pursue his vision. “I see living the bodybuilding lifestyle as analogous to maintaining a healthy and strong organization,” Dr. Dyck says. “Staying in great shape requires vision, passion, resilience, and hard work. Just like a healthy and fit body, a healthy organization with healthy leaders and employees is one that is able to withstand challenges because it is constantly learning and growing.”