Adriana Sandifer Profile

by Gene X Hwang - January 2003

You could call Adriana Sandifer a quick study as it took her only six months of being on the PR team to make Nationals. At 21 years old, Sandifer took 5th place at the Carol Semple Fitness Classic and followed that up with her debut at Nationals with a 13th place finish.

"I had been working out for about six months and had talked to some people on the PR team in the weight room. So, I approached Carla about it and thought it was something I would like to do so I went with it. Six months later I did my first show and then a couple of weeks later, I did the NPC Nationals show."

Pretty impressive especially when you find out that she was born with Gastroschisis, a disorder where the abdominal wall isnâ??t fully closed, so she basically had a hole in her stomach.

"If you look at my abdominals in photos, you can make out the vertical scar that runs across the middle of my abs down to a fake bellybutton the doctors made for me. I am currently training for the 2003 NPC Team Universe and 2003 NPC Nationals and I will probably do a couple of local shows as well," she adds.

And what's even more surprising may be that abdominals are her favorite bodypart to train. On top of that, Sandifer is also a mother. She had to leave college in 2000 to have her son, but had made the Denver Nuggets dance squad. She couldnâ??t commit though, because she lived about an hour away from Denver and was still in school.

However, none of those things caused Sandifer to lose focus with her fitness career.

"I am driven by the other girls in the sport. I see all these pros with super bodies and awesome routines, and I just want to get to where they are. When I look in the mirror and see changes, that also makes me work just a little bit harder to push my body to that next level. Obviously, I want to go pro. I think it is something that I can achieve."

From the looks of things, those are definitely attainable goals for a very focused and determined athlete such as Sandifer.