Hudson women among top finishers at all-natural bodybuilding tourney

After months of brutal weight training, strict diets and occasional team-conquered confidence lapses, three Hudson women did themselves proud at a marquee Twin Cities bodybuilding competition in mid-May.

Nanette Hanson, who only started weight training in October, took second place in the bikini open masters 40-and-older division at the Mr. and Ms. Natural Minnesota/IFPA Pro North American Bodybuilding Championships in Bloomington.

The event, which prides itself on being free of performance-enhancing drugs, drew more than 300 contestants from all over the US and several foreign countries May 15 and 16.

Hanson’s training teammate, Sonja Anderson, finished fourth in the bikini open division and fifth in the bikini novice division.

To prepare for the competition, both had been working out like demons five days a week at Hudson’s Midwest Health and Fitness and on their own under the guidance of Karen Capezza, who operates Shred Till the End Personal Training.

Capezza also scored big at the all-natural championships, taking third place in the figure novice division and fifth in the figure open division.

“It feels good,” Hanson said of her performance.

“Karen has pushed me in ways I never knew I could be pushed before. It’s a bonus to have a nice body to boot -- it’s fun and exciting to see the transformation. I’m 40, and I probably look the best I’ve ever looked.”

Capezza and Anderson are both 39.

Hanson, a pharmacy benefits manager in Bloomington who commutes to work every day, is a longtime runner, but she joined Midwest Health and Fitness in October to take her workouts to a new level.

“I needed a break from running, and I was looking for another physical activity,” she recalled.

“I wanted to be pushed. Karen was a new trainer there, and I wanted to check her out. She looked amazing, so I followed up.”

By January, Capezza had persuaded Hanson to join her and Anderson as they trained for the Bloomington competition, which emphasizes muscle symmetry, leanness, overall muscular development and posing skill.

It proved to be a whole new ballgame for Hanson: super-intense, 45-minute weight workouts that taxed her muscles to complete exhaustion; “carb cycling” diets that alternated high and low carbohydrates to lean out muscle and stretch out skin; and near-constant, sometimes painful posing practice to make sure the best look is presented to the judges.

“I knew she was competitive, and I knew she had the body for it,” Capezza remembered. “Fresh out of the box, she worked like a pro. She was amazing.”

Says Hanson: “I’m a very shy person, so standing in front of people with a bikini on was not something I thought I could do.”

She also admits that the emotional aspect of her training was a roller-coaster at times. “You have days where you think you look amazing, and a half-hour later, you think to yourself, ‘I can’t do it,’” she says.

That’s just one area where team training with an expert saved the day often.

Explains Capezza: “If you’re training on your own, you can lose motivation. Nobody likes to incur the pain involved, so it helps to have other people there to tell you, ‘Come on, give me one more’ when you’re working out. It gives you that extra bump to get you through.”

She takes special satisfaction in the fact that all of her team’s honors were earned the natural way.

“They test you, and they polygraph you,” she says of the all-natural championships. “That gives you a sense that if somebody beats you, it’s not because of some substance that gave them the edge. I’ve been to other, non-natural competitions, and, to me, winning there is not as much of an achievement.”

Hanson admits that she was petrified as she prepared to step onto the stage for the first time, wearing a bikini and high heels.

“It was definitely outside my comfort zone. Absolutely I was nervous, but it got better the more I was out there,” she says.

“I’m proud of this. I feel a sense of accomplishment for doing something I never thought I could do. I placed a huge amount of trust in Karen. ... In fact, I owe everything to her.”