Theron Jenkins
HE’S on FIRE A Jersey City firefighter makes it big in the bodybuilding world By Tara Ryazansky Photos courtesy of Theron Jenkins
H
eadlines called Jersey City firefighter Theron Jenkins an “overnight sensation in the world of bodybuilding” when he won his first competition last May after only six months of serious training, but there’s more to the story. There’s a saying that goes something like, “It takes years of hard work to become an overnight success.” And Jenkins embodies that sentiment. “My journey started when I got into the fire department,” Jenkins says. He was 24 at the
time and born and raised in Greenville. He passed the test on his first try. “I always tell people when I talk about getting into the fire department, it was my mom’s prayers and my hard work. Those two things are what I feel like I owe it all to.” That was seven years ago.
Body of Work Once Jenkins launched his career, he got into physical fitness. “I had money for a gym and a car, so I felt like I had no excuse,” he says. “I always wanted to be a leaner version of myself.” His family had a history of obesity. “I always had a goal to be lean and to put myself in a body that I
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could be proud of.” “When I started going to the gym, I knew that that’s where I had to be, but I didn’t really know what to do,” Jenkins says. “I was pretty much like everybody else when I walked into that gym. Even though I played football in high school, the environment of coming into a commercial gym is just not the same. I kind of really had to start from the ground up.” Jenkins struggled to lose weight. “I was learning how to lift, learning how to train
and do things properly, but I wasn’t losing body fat. Technically, I spent six or seven years bulking up. I didn’t know how to eat, so I didn’t know how to get the body fat off.” “Over the course of time with reading, paying attention, talking with people and
