Joseph Baena’s professional bodybuilding career is off to a swinging start.

Baena, 28, took home first place at the International Natural Bodybuilding Association’s (INBA) Iron Gladiator competition in Southern California.

When asked why he chose to compete through INBA, Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s son admitted he was “excited” to show off his hard work.

“[It’s] my second competition ever,” Baena said on social media before the event. “We’re ready for the debut and excited to get things going.”

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He added, “They just seem like the most reputable natural federation, and so I wanted to be a part of something like that … I wanted to test them out.

For his Iron Gladiator win, Baena wielded a silver sword and a helmet while posing on stage in black swimwear.

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Last weekend, Baena took followers through the competition flow as he prepped to show off his hard work to judges before earning first in the Men’s Open Bodybuilding Heavy Weight Class, Men’s Classic Physique True Novice, and the Men’s Classic Physique Novice.

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He also took home second place in the Men’s Classic Physique Open Class C.

“Tanned up and checked in! Ready for tomorrow’s show,” Baena wrote in a carousel of behind-the-scenes images.

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He thanked his friends and family for the sweet messages, but admitted there was still work to be done.

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“Time to do it again on Saturday,” he wrote over a flexing image from the stage in Colorado. 

The event, which is a national qualifier, is also part of the NPC natural athlete pathway to the Olympia.

WATCH: ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER TRAINS LOOKALIKE SON JOSEPH BAENA AT GYM AS BODYBUILDING BUZZ GROWS

Schwarzenegger won seven Mr. Olympia titles throughout his bodybuilding career, set a record for six consecutive wins, and was the youngest-ever winner in 1970 when he was 23 years old.

Last week, Baena shared a look at his training regimen with the “Kindergarten Cop” actor coaching him on the sidelines. “You have to shock the muscles!” he captioned a snap with his famous bodybuilder father.

In a video obtained by Fox News Digital, Schwarzenegger carefully adjusted Baena’s positioning to ensure optimal muscle growth.

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Baena has been carving out his own path — from acting roles, including the 2024 action thriller “Gunner,” to landing a Men’s Health cover — while navigating inevitable comparisons to his father.

“It’s been a huge growth year of me finding out who I am and really being secure … confident … no matter what the challenges are, what the comparisons are,” Baena previously told Fox News Digital.

Baena added, “The message that I wanted to get across was, there’s a lot of people out there with very accomplished parents … and it’s scary. It’s scary to get compared to these giants and to have the feeling like you need to live up to these expectations.”

North Carolina Tar Heels football coach Bill Belichick was sued on Thursday over an alleged incident that occurred at his Massachusetts home in June 2024.

Painter Andrew Jackson sued Forty Five Fair Street LLC, a company managed by Belichick, in Nantucket Superior Court. Jackson said in his lawsuit that “construction practices created an unsafe work area for workers at the premises” and, because of that, he suffered injuries after a fall.

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“As a direct and proximate result of the fall, plaintiff sustained serious bodily injuries including a severe right ankle injury, together with pain, disability, medical expenses, lost wages, and other consequential damages,” the lawsuit stated.

The filing added that Jackson received workers’ compensation benefits after the fall but “retains his rights to pursue this third-party negligence action against non-employer responsible parties.”

The lawsuit said that Belichick’s company should have made sure the construction site was in a safe-working condition.

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“Defendant breached its duties by, among other things: a. causing, permitting, or allowing unsafe conditions to exist at the premises; b. failing to maintain the work area in a reasonably safe condition; c. failing to inspect the premises adequately; d. failing to remedy hazardous conditions it knew or should have known about; e. failing to warn Plaintiff of dangerous conditions; and f. otherwise acting negligently in the ownership, operation, management, supervision, maintenance, and control of the premises.”

Jackson is seeking nearly $300,000, according to the Nantucket Current, which first reported the lawsuit.

Fox News Digital reached out to Belichick’s representatives for comment.

Belichick bought the Nantucket property for $4.8 million in 2024, according to Boston.com.

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Former CIA station chief Dan Hoffman said on “The Sunday Briefing” that a reported agency deception campaign may have helped draw Iranian forces away from a missing U.S. airman, offering new insight into the mission that culminated in a daring rescue behind enemy lines.

It was reported that the CIA attempted to deceive the Iranians into believing the U.S. was gearing up for a maritime rescue, Hoffman said, when in reality, the airman was exfiltrated from the mountains.

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The CIA also assisted in tracking both the missing airman and enemy forces, he said.

“The CIA was there to track [the airman’s] location… And then at the same time, the CIA is tracking Iranian security forces, their movements, their efforts to find and fix the location of our airman. And then, at the same time, running this deception operation, an extraordinary operation.”

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“I’ve heard it referred to as looking for a needle in a haystack. I think it’s more like a needle in a stack of needles. Extraordinarily difficult,” said Hoffman.

His comments follow the rescue early Sunday morning of a U.S. Air Force Weapons System Officer (WSO) who had ejected from his F-15E fighter jet over Iran. The WSO spent roughly 36 hours in hiding. Hoffman said he would need to rely on the skills he learned at the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school.

On the intelligence side, Hoffman said the strategy could have been much simpler. The CIA just needed to drop the false information where they knew Iran would hear it.

“The CIA would have looked to find those channels of communication that we know we can exploit that the Iranian security force are listening to. Iran has a… pretty developed cyber capability. And what we would have done is simply supplied some information there, some of it true, to establish the bona fides of the channel that we were using, and then this deception operation would have been run in that channel,” Hoffman said.