NEED TO KNOW

• Arnold Schwarzenegger’s son, Joseph Baena, won first place in multiple categories at the NPC Natural Colorado State competition this weekend
• “Mission Accomplished!” Baena wrote on Instagram, sharing photos of himself flexing onstage
• The actor and bodybuilder’s victory came a few days after he was spotted training with his dad at Gold’s Gym in Venice Beach

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s son, Joseph Baena, is officially a bodybuilding champion.

On Saturday, March 28, Baena, 28, shared a post on Instagram, revealing that he won first place in multiple categories at the NPC Natural Colorado State competition — including the Men’s Open Body Heavy Weight Class, Men’s Classic Physique True Novice and Men’s Class Physique Novice.

“Mission Accomplished! 🥇,” he wrote alongside several photos of himself flexing onstage during his bodybuilding debut.

Baena, whose mom is Mildred Patricia Baena, celebrated his first victory just days after he spent some time training and receiving tips from his dad at Gold’s Gym in Venice Beach, Calif.

The Terminator star, 78, started training at the same gym after moving to the United States in the 1960s.

From there, Schwarzenegger has been widely considered one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time, having won the Mr. Olympia title seven times and Mr. Universe five times, before he stopped competing in 1980.

While Baena is following in his father’s footsteps, he opened up about how he didn’t always have the most toned physique in a July Instagram post.

“People sometimes forget that I used to be chubby in high school,” the Gunner actor explained in his caption. “I got cut from my basketball and soccer team because I couldn’t keep up with the other kids.”

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“Swim didn’t have tryouts thankfully and completely changed my life forever,” he added. “That was my introduction to Fitness and training.”

Baena previously told PEOPLE in 2022 that he used to be harassed by his classmates for his weight — even the ones he’d considered friends.

“I was bullied when I was a kid, elementary, middle school, and not really in high school, but I just felt like an outsider in high school at the beginning,” he said at the time, further explaining that he was “really overweight from the end of elementary school into the beginning of high school.”

“It was my closest friends that were the ones that bullied me the most and made fun of me for being overweight and all these kind of things,” Baena continued. “So, that was really a big struggle for me in finding myself and figuring out and creating that ambition to change my weight and my physique.”  Arnold Schwarzenegger (left) and Joseph Baena (right) in June 2025, Joseph Baena in March 2026. Credit : Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic; Joseph Baena/Instagram