HE’S on FIRE

A Jersey City firefighter makes it big in the bodybuilding world

By Tara Ryazansky

Photos courtesy of Theron Jenkins

Headlines called Jersey City fi refi ghter Theron Jenkins an “overnight sensation in the world of bodybuilding” when he won his fi rst 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 fi re department,” Jenkins says. He was 24 at the time and born and raised in Greenville. He passed the test on his fi rst try. “I always tell people when I talk about getting into the fi re 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 fi tness. “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 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

Theron Jenkins

working with people, hiring coaches and stuff like that, I started to put it together,” Jenkins says. He works with Mikey James of RareXBreeds. “It wasn’t until this year that I was finally able to put it together enough so that I could see it through.”

Food Fitness

He says it was adding dietary changes that led to a shift in his look.

“When I finally learned how to get the body fat off, people were starting to see what was underneath the whole time,” Jenkins says. “People were like, ‘Bro you’re so big. You’re so big. I want to be like you.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, you’ve got to spend those seven years fat and training hard, putting on size.’ For me it just happened like that, like I was taking a coat off. It’s fortunate that I come from a line of big guys. My genetics are a gift. We’re all big dudes in my family.”

Jenkins realized he had the potential to compete in bodybuilding. “I wanted to look like that,” he says. “That aesthetic is what I wanted. They all look really good, and I wanted to look really good.”

Body Types

“Body building is an ambiguous term,” Jenkins says. “Not everyone in a bodybuilding show is like jacked out of their mind with muscles. In the bodybuilding world there are different classes.”

Jenkins says there are various classifications like Mens Physique “They’re smaller guys,” he says. “Kind of like beach body looking dudes. They’re probably like 160, but real shredded. Then they’ve got the Classic Physique guys who are probably a little bit bigger. They might be like an Abercrombie and Finch model type. They’re probably 170-195, so they’re bigger dudes. Then you’ve got the Body Building Class which is probably 200 to the highest you can go. Maybe 200-225 is a light weight, and anything up from there is a heavy weight. Anybody who is a bodybuilder who is a heavy weight, those are some giant, giant, giant mofos.”

In It to Win It

Jenkins was at 240 when he competed in the 2021 Organization of Competition Bodies (OCB) Jersey Natural Open in Atlantic City last May.

“There’s two federations,” Jenkins says. “One is drugtested, and one is not. In the league where they don’t drugtest you, they look unreal.”

The OCB requires drug testing.

Jenkins competed in two rounds: the novice and the open class.

“I guess you could look at the novice class like the open mic,” Jenkins says. “A dude signs up, and he might be good. Another guy is kind of terrible. The open is like the poetry slam. These guys are going up there to compete, and all of them are going to be really good.”

Jenkins took first place in the novice round. “When I went back out there for the open round, which is a step up with guys who are looking more serious, I wasn’t as nervous to walk out there,” he says.

“When you go to a bodybuilding show, they switch people around to see who looks the best,” Jenkins says. “The guy who’s in the middle is number one, the guy to his left and the guy to his right don’t look as good as he does, and they kind of taper off to the least. When we came out for the lineup, I already was on the end. They were calling this number for this guy to change spots, and that number for that guy to change spots. When they called my number and told me to change spots, I looked down the line and realized that they wanted me to go to the middle. At that moment I knew nobody was going to beat me now. It was almost like that was when I woke up.”

Reality Check

Despite being hyped up by his coach and even his fellow competitors, Jenkins still saw himself as he was at the beginning of his journey. “When you come from looking at yourself a certain way for so long, no matter how good you wind up looking, you almost don’t believe it,” he says.

“Guys backstage were like, ‘This is your first time competing? It’s not normal to win your first time, and to have that kind of composure to hit your poses like that, be that big and be natural.’ You would be hard pressed to find someone who is this big and natural. Then I was thinking about how big my coach was telling me I am, I started to kind of look around and see it. He was telling me when I go out there on stage, people were going to look and say, ‘Where did this guy come from?’ Now I kind of see what my coach was saying.”

Card-Carrying Champ

Jenkins finished third in the open round.

“If I would’ve won in the open, I would’ve gotten my pro card,” Jenkins says. “So now, when I go compete in the next show, I’m going back to get my pro card.

He hopes to compete again in December.

“Now that I understand who I am and what I could be, I want to go to the show and take off my shirt backstage and have them say, ‘We might as well go home.’” —JCM

Theron Jenkis