Arnold Schwarzenegger is offering a new fitness challenge after helping presidents and the US military get in shape
Arnold Schwarzenegger kicked off the new year by offering fans the chance to get in top shape by working out with him in person.
On January 1, the 77-year-old actor and bodybuilding icon presented a new challenge for users of his fitness app The Pump.
“Today I announce the ‘Iron Ticket,'” Schwarzenegger wrote in his Pump Club newsletter. “It’s like the Golden Ticket from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, except this one will train you instead of giving you a lifetime supply of chocolate and a tour of the candy factory.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger is giving fans the chance to work out with him at his gym. (Arnold Schwarzenegger Instagram/Getty)
“Every three months I’ll be looking for your success stories on the app,” he continued. “I will choose three people with fantastic success stories every three months to fly and train with me. One beginner, one intermediate, one advanced — so no one is left out.”
Schwarzenegger explained it, unlike others fitness challenges, he doesn’t intend for the “Iron Ticket” to be one that “just rewards those who get fitter.”
“I want this to be for everyone, no matter where your starting line is,” he wrote. “Whether you’re doing your first chair squats or squatting 500 pounds, as long as you’re working to get better every day, you qualify.”
Fitness icon also revealed that he plans to continue his Iron Ticket challenge indefinitely.
“It’s not a one-time thing, like most challenges, because real fitness isn’t one-month or even three-month transformations. I want you to choose fitness for life, and that’s why the Iron Ticket will only last.”
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Schwarzenegger has previously said that his life’s mission is to motivate others to embrace fitness and make their physical health a priority.
For more than five decades, the action star, who continues to work out every day, has helped millions around the world, including fans, members of the military and even a former US president, get in shape.
Here’s a look back at Schwarzenegger’s history as a fitness inspiration.
Bodybuilding champion
Schwarzenegger won seven Mr. titles. Olympia during his bodybuilding career. (Jack Mitchell)
Schwarzengger’s passion for fitness began when he started weight training as a teenager and decided to take it up career in bodybuilding. The Austrian-born entered his first bodybuilding competition at the age of 16, and won his first major title at the age of 17 when he won the Junior Mr. competition in 1965. Europe. A year later, he emerged as the winner of the Mr. of Europe in Germany.
When Schwarzengger was 20 years old, he won the Mr. Universe in 1967, becoming the competition’s youngest ever champion.
In 1970, he won the title of the world’s best professional bodybuilder when he won the Mr. Olympia. He continued to win Mr. Olympia for five consecutive years until 1975.
After a four-year hiatus, Schwarzenegger returned to the Mr. Olympia, where he again won the title of the best. As a seven-time champion Mr. Olympia, Schwarzenegger would hold the record for most wins in the event until Lee Haney won his eighth straight title in 1991.
A Hollywood pioneer
Schwarzenegger made a breakthrough in his acting career in the movie “Conan the Barbarian”. (Dino De Laurentiis/Universal Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)
After success in bodybuilding, Schwarzenegger set his sights on an acting career. However, he initially struggled in Hollywood and faced rejection due to his foreign accent and body type, which was not considered standard for a leading man at the time.
Schwarzenegger made his film debut when he played the title character in 1970’s Hercules in New York. Over the next few years, he made guest appearances on TV shows and took on minor roles in films.
In 1977, Schwarzenegger played himself in the bodybuilding docu-drama Pumping Iron. The film became a hit at the box office and paved the way for the bodybuilding industry to enter mainstream culture. With the success of “Pumping Iron”, Schwarzenegger gained international fame.
In 1982, Schwarzenegger made his acting breakthrough when he starred in “Conan the Barbarian”. He became a household name after taking on his iconic role in 1984’s “Terminator,” which spawned five sequels.
Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, who once had a famous rivalry, are credited with fueling the action movie craze of the 1980s, which also helped fuel the explosion of the fitness industry.
In a 2000 post on his website, Schwarzenegger reflected on how he overcame the early obstacles in his career.
Schwarzenegger is internationally known for his iconic role in the “Terminator” franchise. (Photo by Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)
“It was really hard for me at first — agents and casting people told me my body was ‘weird’, that I had a funny accent and that my name was too long. You name, it and they told me I had to change it “, he wrote in response to fans’ questions.
Schwarzenegger continued, “Pretty much everywhere I turned I was told I didn’t stand a chance. But that just made me more determined and inspired me to work harder. I took acting and voice lessons and never gave up.”
“One of the valuable lessons I’ve learned is that you have to establish yourself in a field where no one else exists and then create a need for yourself, as I was able to do in the action genre with Conan and Terminator . . . If you can do that, eventually they must come to you.”
Although Schwarzenegger retired from acting after becoming governor of California in 2003, he continued his career in the entertainment industry after leaving office in 2011.
Among other roles, Schwarzenegger starred in the blockbuster franchise “The Expendables” and reprized his character in the last two entries in the “Terminator” franchise.
In December 2024, Schwarzenegger announced that he was returning to the big screen for the first time in five years, playing the role of Santa Claus in the upcoming holiday movie “The Man with the Bag.”
President of the Council for Physical Fitness of the President of the Republic
US President George HW Bush selected Schwarzenegger as chairman of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. (Luke Frazza/AFP via Getty Images)
At the peak of his acting career, Schwarzenegger established a friendship with President George HW Bushwhich lasted until the death of the former commander-in-chief in 2018 at the age of 94.
A fellow fitness enthusiast, Bush became gym buddies with Schwarzenegger, and the two worked out together at the White House and Camp David.
During an interview with CNN in 2018, Schwarzenegger recalled that Bush would invite him to Camp David once a month, and the two would participate in a series of strenuous physical activities.
“He was exhausting,” Schwarzenegger said of Bush. “We played sports from morning until night. We did skeet and trap shooting, horseshoe throwing and weight training and playing wallyball, which is volleyball against the wall, with the Marines, and it went on and on, and bowling. While I went to bed, that’s all I can say.”
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In 1990, Bush selected Schwarzenegger to become chairman of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.
“The physical health of all Americans must have a stronger commitment than an annual New Year’s resolution. We now know that individuals can impact their health, fitness, and productive start to life through the active pursuit of regular exercise programs,” Bush wrote in a statement.
“I asked Arnold to chair the Council because I believe he is uniquely qualified to address and influence national health and fitness issues, particularly among our youth,” he continued. “Arnold has devoted much of his career to the pursuit and advocacy of physical fitness. His abilities have produced a wide range of career successes including athletic competition, acting and business ventures.
“I urge him to raise awareness among all Americans about the importance of good health through physical fitness.”
The two were also friends and workout partners. (Jean-Louis Atlan/Sygma via Getty Images)
During an interview with the “Jocko Podcast” last year, Schwarzenegger recalled his time as council president and how he was instrumental in bringing in exercise equipment military members who were deployed abroad.
The actor recalled a conversation with Bush, during which the former president told him about an article he had read in the New York Times, which stated that soldiers in Iraq were training with sandbags.
“I said, “Do you know why they practice with sandbags? First of all, because resistance training is good. But another reason is that you haven’t sent them weights and dumbbells yet. Do you think they wouldn’t rather lift with dumbbells and barbells?'” Schwarzenegger recalled telling Bush.
Schwarzenegger remembered Bush asking him, “Can you arrange that?”
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“I said, ‘You’re talking to the right guy.'”
Schwarzenegger said he asked for donations from every manufacturer of weight equipment.
“I piled up 40 tons of weight equipment and I put it in a crate,” he recalled.
After learning that Schwarzenegger was planning to ship the equipment overseas, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, General Colin Powell, stepped in.
“He says, ‘Arnold, I’m not going to be so stupid as to ship this, but you never heard of it,'” Schwarzenegger told Jock. “‘I’ll fly the fucking thing over there. It’ll be there in two days.'”
“And then all of a sudden, three weeks later, I was getting letters from people on the front lines saying, ‘Thank you, Arnold, for helping us get these weights. We just got the weights. Now we’re working in the barracks with dumbbells and weights simply they don’t have enough, because there are so many of us who train with weights, but it’s a great start, Schwarzenegger remembered.
Schwarzenegger was instrumental in bringing weight training equipment to members of the military. (Greg Mathieson/Mai/Getty Images)
Schwarzenegger told how he traveled to visit troops stationed in Iraq during the Second Gulf War in 2003. Actor he traveled to show his movie “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines”.
He said it was important to him that the men and women serving in Iraq “be the first to see it before anybody else, any critic or anybody else. I was very fanatical about it.”
“I went to different places there to show them the movie,” Schwarzenegger recalled. “Then I suddenly saw – the halls where they practice. The craziest thing was when I went back there in 2009… I saw halls that were much bigger than any hall in the world.”
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“It was crazy,” he continued. “Then I realized that we have now reached the point where there is no fire station that does not have weights, no police station that does not have weights, no military station that does not have weights.
“It happened in the period between the 70s and the 90s. It was an explosion in all directions,” he added. “And that was my way of being useful. I believe in this. I feel passionate about this.”
“Because I felt that the bigger I develop the sport, the healthier people will be.”
