Updated March 30, 2026, 4:35 p.m. ET
Like father, like son.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s son, Joseph Baena, revealed on social media Sunday, March 29, that he had won several categories in a bodybuilding competition.
Baena, 28, shared on Instagram that he had scored gold in several 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 his heavily brawned and bronzed body flexing on the podium.
Baena is Schwarzenegger’s son with former housekeeper Mildred Baena. Schwarzenegger has four other children with his ex-wife, Maria Shriver, including Katherine Schwarzenegger, 39, who is married to actor Chris Pratt.
Baena’s win comes several days after he shared photos of himself training alongside Schwarzenegger. On Wednesday, March 25, he posted a carousel of shots on Instagram showing his father, the former governor of California, giving him pointers as he lifted heavy arm weights. “You have to shock the muscles!” he captioned the slideshow.
Known for his muscular build and hulk-like roles in Hollywood as much as his political record, perhaps even more so, Schwarzenegger is an icon in the bodybuilding universe.
In the 1977 film “Pumping Iron,” he famously described “the pump” − or when blood flows into your muscles during a workout − as “the greatest feeling.”
“There’s a scene in ‘Pumping Iron’ when I talk about the pump and all of this stuff,” he previously told USA TODAY. “We used sex as kind of a tool to seduce people into the bodybuilding and all of that. But … what I really was saying is that, working out makes you feel so good, not just physically … but psychologically.”
Contributing: Cydney Henderson, Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY
