When Lynus Woo was a student at the University of Oxford in 2015, he signed on for a mighty challenge: to attain a body worthy of winning the United Kingdom Drug Free Bodybuilding Association – or UKDFBA – men’s physique championship.
After intensive training and a stringent calorie-cutting diet plan, the determined Woo won gold at the 2016 competition. At the time, his area of study seemed poles apart from his focus on bodybuilding and fitness: he was honing his painting skills at Oxford’s Ruskin School of Art.
For Hong Kong-born Woo, grandson of solicitor and arts benefactor Woo Po-shing, and son of businessman Wilson Woo Kah-wah and former singer May Ng Yuen-fong, fitness and art have always gone hand in hand.
“My body is actually a work of art, for myself. It’s a sculpture,” he says. “I think your body is actually, potentially, your best work of art, because that’s how you display yourself.”
But a person doesn’t need to have six-pack abs to be a work of art, he adds. They just need to feel comfortable in their own skin.
Woo first became interested in bodybuilding at Harrow School in the UK. Only after meeting his coach while at Oxford did he realise it could be a career path that he could pursue.
