Arnold Schwarzenegger offers new fitness challenge after helping presidents and US military shape up
Arnold Schwarzenegger kicked off the new year by offering fans an opportunity to get into top shape by working out with him in person.
On January 1, the 77-year-old actor and bodybuilding icon unveiled a new challenge for users of his fitness app, The Pump.
"Today, I’m announcing 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 make you fit instead of giving you a lifetime supply of chocolate and a tour of a candy factory."
"Every three months, I’ll be asking for your success stories in the app," he continued. "And I will pick three people with fantastic success stories every three months to fly out and train with me. One beginner, one intermediate, one advanced — so no one is left out."
Schwarzenegger explained that, unlike other fitness challenges, he doesn't intend for the "Iron Ticket" to be one that "just awards the fit getting fitter."
"I want this to be for everyone, no matter where your starting line is," he wrote. "Whether you’re doing your first-ever chair squats or squatting 500 pounds, as long as you’re working to be better every day, you’re eligible."
The fitness icon also revealed that he plans for his Iron Ticket challenge to continue indefinitely.
"It isn’t a one-time thing, like most challenges, because true fitness isn’t about one-month or even three-month transformations. I want you to choose fitness for life, and that’s why the Iron Ticket will just keep going."
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Schwarzenegger has previously said that it is his life's mission to motivate others to embrace fitness and prioritize their physical health.
For over 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 U.S. President, shape up.
Here's a look back at Schwarzenegger's history of fitness inspiration.
Schwarzengger's passion for fitness began when he started weight training as a teenager and decided to pursue a career in bodybuilding. The Austria native entered his first bodybuilding competition at the age of 16 and earned his first major title at 17 when he won the 1965 Junior Mr. Europe contest. A year later, he emerged the winner of the Mr. Europe competition in Germany.
When Schwarzengger was 20, he won the 1967 Mr. Universe competition, becoming the contest's youngest champion ever.
In 1970, he was awarded the title of the world's best professional bodybuilder when he won the Mr. Olympia competition. He went on to win Mr. Olympia for five consecutive years until 1975.
After a four-year hiatus, Schwarzenegger made his return to the Mr. Olympia competition, where he claimed the top title again. As a seven-time Mr. Olympia champion, Schwarzenegger would hold the record for the competition's most wins until Lee Haney claimed his eighth consecutive title in 1991.
After his success in bodybuilding, Schwarzenegger set his sights on a career in acting. 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 titular character in 1970's "Hercules in New York." For the next few years, he made guest appearances in TV shows and took on minor roles in movies.
In 1977, Schwarzenegger starred as himself in the bodybuilding docudrama "Pumping Iron." The film became a box office hit and paved the way for the bodybuilding industry's entry into mainstream culture. With the success of "Pumping Iron," Schwarzenegger rose to 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 1984's "The Terminator," which spawned five sequels.
Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, who once had a storied rivalry, are credited with igniting 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.
"It was very difficult for me in the beginning — I was told by agents and casting people that my body was ‘too 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 a fan's questions.
Schwarzenegger continued, "Basically everywhere I turned I was told that I had no chance. But this only made me more determined and inspired me to work harder. I took acting and voice classes and I never gave up."
"One of the valuable lessons that I learned is that you have to establish yourself in an area where there is no one else and then create a need for yourself, as I was able to do in the action film genre with Conan and the Terminator films. If you can do that, eventually they have to come to you."
Though Schwarzenegger retired from acting after becoming the Governor of California in 2003, he resumed his career in the entertainment industry after he left office in 2011.
Among other roles, Schwarzenegger starred in the blockbuster franchise "The Expendables" and reprised his character in the latest 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."
At the height of his acting career, Schwarzenegger established a friendship with President George H.W. Bush, which lasted until the former Commander in Chief's death in 2018 at the age of 94.
A fellow fitness enthusiast, Bush became gym buddies with Schwarzenegger, with the two working out together at the White House and Camp David.
During a 2018 interview with CNN, Schwarzenegger recalled that Bush would invite him to Camp David once a month, and the pair would take part in a series of strenuous physical activities.
"He was exhausting," Schwarzenegger said of Bush. "We were doing sports from morning to night. We were doing skeet and trap shooting and horseshoe-throwing and working out with the weights and doing wallyball, which is volleyball against the wall, with the Marines there, and it went on and on, and bowling. By the time I went to bed at night, I was exhausted. That's all I can tell you."
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In 1990, Bush tapped Schwarzenegger to become the 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 influence their health, fitness and productive prime of life through the active pursuit of regular exercise programs," Bush wrote in a statement.
"I have asked Arnold to chair the Council because I believe he is uniquely qualified to address and influence national health and fitness issues, especially 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 broad range of career successes involving athletic competition, acting and business ventures.
"I challenge him to raise the consciousness of all Americans on the importance of good health through physical fitness."
During an interview last year on the "Jocko Podcast," Schwarzenegger recalled his time serving as the council's chair and how he was instrumental in bringing workout equipment to military members who were deployed overseas.
The actor remembered having a conversation with Bush during which the former president told him about an article that he had read in the New York Times, which noted how soldiers in Iraq were working out with sandbags.
"I said, "Do you know why they're working out with sandbags? First of all, because resistance training is good. But the other reason is, you haven't sent them any barbells 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 organize that?"
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"I said, ‘You’re talking to the right guy.'"
Schwarzenegger said that he solicited donations from every manufacturer of weight equipment.
"I got 40 tons of weight equipment together, and I put them in a crate," he recalled.
Upon learning that Schwarzenegger planned to ship the equipment overseas, the then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, stepped in.
"He says, 'Arnold, I'm not gonna be that stupid and ship this over with a ship, but you never heard that,'" Schwarzenegger told Jocko. "'I'm gonna fly the f---ing thing over there. It's gonna be there in two days.'"
"And then all of a sudden, three weeks later, I was getting letters from guys on the front lines saying, 'Thank you, Arnold, for helping us get these weights. We just received weights. We are now working at the barracks with the dumbbells and the barbells and stuff. We just don't have enough, obviously, because there's so many of us that are into weight training. But it is a great, great beginning,'" Schwarzenegger remembered.
Schwarzenegger went on to recount how he traveled to visit the troops stationed in Iraq during the Second Gulf War in 2003. The actor made the trip to screen his film "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines."
He said it was important to him that the men and women serving in Iraq "be the first ones to see it before anyone else, any critic or anyone else sees it. I was very fanatic about that."
"I went to various different places over there to show them the movie," Schwarzenegger recalled. "That's when I saw, all of a sudden — gyms where they were working out. The craziest thing was when I went back there in 2009 . . . I saw gymnasiums that were much bigger than any gymnasium in the world."
"It was insane," he continued. "That's when I realized that we have now gotten to the point where there is no fire station that doesn't have weights, no police station that doesn't have weights, no military station that doesn't have weights."
"This is what happened in the period between the '70s and the '90s. It was an explosion in every direction," he added. "And that was my way of being useful. I believe in this. I feel passionate about this."
"Because I felt like the bigger I make the sport, the healthier the people are going to get."