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One Year After Premature Birth, Camille Leblanc-Bazinet Returns to Compete in First Bodybuilding Competition

September 30, 2021 by
Photo Credit: Camille Leblanc-Bazinet
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The 2014 Fittest Woman on Earth Camille Leblanc-Bazinet is throwing her hat in a very different competition ring this weekend: a bodybuilding show in Daytona Beach, FL.

Remind me: After competing at nine consecutive CrossFit Games as an individual, winning the Games in 2014, Leblanc-Bazinet competed in her 10th Games on a team in 2018 before retiring from competition and soon switching to more of a bodybuilding-style of training. Last year, Leblanc-Bazinet gave birth prematurely to a less-than three pound baby girl named Zoe, a newborn who spent three months in the NICU before Leblanc-Bazinet and her husband Dave Lipson were able to bring her home. 

The details: Leblanc-Bazinet will be competing in the bikini category of the NPC/IFBB Daytona Beach Classic this Saturday — exactly one year and one day since bringing Zoe home from the hospital. She has been documenting her journey on social media over the last 16 weeks.

  • “I am so excited to see how much my body will change and to challenge myself in a whole new way…I have been loving doing more bodybuilding. I feel strong and not banged up, which is awesome and I still do some functional fitness because I love feeling fit,” she wrote three weeks into her 16-week prep. 
  • “It’s so fun to be practicing a new sport and saying it’s outside my comfort zone is an understatement. Funny enough, performing in front of people used to give me so much anxiety that I would be sick in the bathroom every single time I would compete…I think part of pushing through my anxiety gave me a lot of confidence and the more I did it the stronger I felt,” she shared three weeks later. 
  • “I am loving learning about how to manipulate my metabolism and changing my ratio of macronutrients to direct a more specific outcome on my body composition,” she offered eight weeks out from this weekend’s show. 
  • “Prepping for a show is teaching me a ton about self control and a whole other kind of discipline and awareness,” she wrote three weeks ago. 
  • Two weeks ago, looking as lean as the CrossFit community has seen Leblanc-Bazinet, she admitted the experience has been challenging: “Between the calorie deficit and all the training, when it’s time (to practice walking in heels and posing in her bikini) I’m exhausted. I do find this to be one of the most demanding components of this sport…also having to look at myself and wearing heels is a whole new world for me,” she wrote.

The big picture: Lipson told the Morning Chalk Up that one of the main reasons his wife decided to train for a bikini was to show that, after giving birth, “she could rebound into the best aesthetic of her life,” Lipson said. Though this was her original goal, the experience has been a rewarding one, one that has not only challenged her, but has also provided her with a purpose, just like CrossFit did. 

  • “After years of accumulating orthopedic injuries trying to prepare for the CrossFit Games, training to re-shape her body, while using her knowledge of functional fitness, has been a very enjoyable change of pace for her,” Lipson said. 
  • He added: “I know that waking up and having a diet, training regime and lifestyle that is detailed to produce results on purpose with purpose excited her. It’s fun to wake up and know exactly what you are doing, and why you are doing it…Even more fun to earn results you can see in the mirror, and Camille has been dying to feel like she can win and make progress again in the gym.”

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