#TeamCSN chats to Gaspari athlete Luke Sandoe.

Cardiff Sports Nutrition are proud to have such a good relationship with many UK athletes, and Gaspari Nutrition athlete Luke Sandoe is a great talent that CSN love to work with. Luke's future gets us excited at CSN as we've seen how much progress he has made in a relatively short space of time. Join us as we ask Luke a few questions as he prepares to compete this autumn. Let’s start with the basics, how old are you? How long have you been training? And how did you get in to bodybuilding? I’m just about to turn the ripe old age of 26! This is my 5th year training and I started the same reason most do (no I wasn’t bullied at school lol). Growing up I loved comic books and super heroes and I was always drawn to the characters who were biggest and/or strongest i.e. Hulk, Superman etc. As I got older I started getting in to comic book illustration and to be any good you had to have a good eye and understanding of human anatomy. From there I went to college and studied human biology, illustration and anatomy… I didn’t actually finish any of the courses as I was too into my drumming and music. Being in a band and touring and playing shows I was always a little chunkier than the typical skinny jean wearing guys and felt a little self conscious about it. Wanting to look like them I basically lived on carrots, potatoes and tuna and doing bodyweight exercises in my bedroom for about a year. Somehow I grew rather than get super skinny. After I left music (a story for another day) I was very much into bodybuilding but didn’t really consider myself a bodybuilder. Long story short, at 21 I joined a gym and had the goal of being an IFBB pro, which I’m still working on 5 years later.

Having watched your videos from last year’s run into the British and this, you seem in a much better place physically and mentally, is this the case?? If so what changes have you made from last year to this?? Last year was a complete write off. From 16 weeks out to 8 weeks out I lost maybe 5lbs. Left my then coach, did my own thing and had to cram 16 weeks worth of prep in 8. 2weeks out my body shut down and things just got worse and looked and felt awful. Feeling unnecessarily under pressure I still reluctantly went ahead with the show anyway. This year I have a new team behind me, my new coach Marc ‘Superfists of Doom’ Robinson and having learned so much from mistakes and being in a much better starting point I feel confident this time I can sorry, I WILL nail it! Emotionally speaking I’m also in a much happier place. My much better half Carly and I have our own place together and I now work for myself . Does your training differ between off season and contest prep? What kind of training do you advocate, hard and heavy? Lighter and focus on contractions? Or a compromise between the two? No it stays pretty much the same year round. The only really difference being my output/Volume is higher pre contest. I train with max poundage’s with max tension and max contractions. Seems to be doing the trick so far.

I get obsessed with food programmes when dieting (Great British Bake-off and man vs food in particular), we were just wondering if you had any weird contest prep food related issues or quirks? EPIC MEAL TIME!!!! I can’t get enough of it haha. I’ve had to stop myself this time as it’s causing intense psychological trauma. If you were allowed one food to be left in all the way through dieting without any guilt or detrimental effects to your physique what would it be? One food!?!? Ummmm…. Cereal… all of the cereal there is. Back to the slightly more serious stuff… what are your goals for this year and what are your goals for the next year to 18 months? Realistically I believe I can win the supers this year so that would be my ultimate goal. Within 18 months I’d like to have competed at the amateur Arnold in Ohio and potentially earned my pro status. You seem quite a relaxed individual externally on camera and in the conversations we’ve had, what things stress you out and how do you cope with that stress? Being late and hungry stresses me out. I’m always late and always hungry so I just play Skyrim on the Xbox when I can… does the trick! Are you someone who plans things meticulously to the hour as far in advance as possible and tries to stick to it, or someone who plays it by ear listening more to how you and your body feel? A little bit of both. I like to make a plan and stick to it based on how my body feels. Sometimes it goes smoothly other times slight deviations need to be made. If you could only use one supplement what would it be and why? Probably a whey isolate. They usually taste great, convenient and good source of protein! Thanks for your time, just one last question before I leave you in peace… which UK athletes do you admire and who do you see as having potential to go far in the bodybuilding world from the current crop of up and coming UK bodybuilders? There’s soooooo many! I think after having spent a fair amount of time with him, Sas Heirati. Great physique and an even better guy. He has all the tools to go far so I really hope we can both represent the UK on the pro scene one day.

We wish Luke all the best for his upcoming competitions and look forward to working with him in the future. You can keep up to date with Luke and his progress by following his Twitter @lukesandoe. Paul Rimmer BSc, MSc