IIT-grad from Hyderabad turns celeb fitness trainer
Sandeep Raj quit well-paid IT job to pursue his passion for fitness and is the man behind transformation of actors like Simbu and Samantha
Hyderabad: There’s no doubt that Samantha Akkineni is one of the fittest actors in the Telugu film industry. And whenever Samantha is in Chennai, she trains with Sandeep Raj. The lockdown helped the duo connect even more. “She is dedicated to the core and loves to lift weights. She loves eating good food and exercising properly. She turned a vegan in the lockdown period, so it was an amazing journey to help her in the diet aspect as well. I trained her every day for one and half hours without fail,” says the 29-year-old trainer. “Audiences can see Samantha’s fitter look in the TV series The Family Man,” he adds.
Sandeep feels that he is lucky to get time and trust from celebrities. But how did it all start? “I was actually very fat and not at all into fitness. My fitness journey began in 2014. I am an Electrical Engineer from IIT Kharagpur. In college, I started preparing for weightlifting and powerlifting. I got into the Inter IIT team and won gold all the three years. I became competitive and started taking part in various sports. The transformation in me was amazing. So, I wanted others to experience it as well,” he says.
Sandeep says that there are a lot of people these days struggling with anxiety and other mental health issues. The best way to overcome them is to start working out. “Any form of exercise… takes care of a lot of things we don’t understand unless we do it. Once, I got to transform a friend who had met with an accident and the doctors had told him that he can’t walk for 6-7 months. He was depressed and I wanted to help him out by training him. I changed his whole perspective and he is totally alright now. That is what got me to quit my well-paid, coding job in IT and start doing something meaningful,” he says adding that the satisfaction he gets transforming people is “priceless”.
Sandeep Raj
Sandeep later did certifications in the US and the UK. “I got in touch with the well-known trainer Kris Gethin, who was then working with Hrithik Roshan for Krrish 3. He gave me an insight into celebrity fitness training, and how transformations are required in movies. He wanted me to be a part of a company he was opening in India called Gethin Gyms. He asked me to move to Chennai from Hyderabad in 2015. The gym didn’t start, but I was adamant on making a mark for myself,” he shares, adding that the Tamil film industry had been very kind to him.
Sandeep made headlines when he transformed well-known actor Simbu for the film ‘Eeswaran’. Simbu lost close to 30 kg. He is also working with him in ‘Maanaadu’, where the actor is set to flaunt his six-pack abs. “He was 101kg, lazy and not at all interested initially. Our conversations triggered him eventually, and when he really wants something, he kills it!” says Sandeep, who also trains actors Prasanna, Sneha, Shanthanu, Arun Vijay, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar and Mahat.
In the next 5 to 10 years, Sandeep hopes to train athletes. He’s already training a couple of Under-19 cricketers and football players. What’s his advice to people who cannot make it to the gym? “Just start running – the rush you get is completely a different high. Once you start understanding that high, you will start taking fitness seriously. You can go swimming or take up a sport that interests you. My idea is to exhaust and then replenish. When you exercise, you become a completely different person. Why would you want to miss that in life?” concludes Sandeep.
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