There are a wide variety of competitions held at the Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus, Ohio every year. Among them is the World’s Strongest Firefighter competition. The champion of that contest this year was Daniel Camacho of Phoenix, Arizona. He told Fit Rockstar host Isabelle Turell that he almost didn’t do the competition at all.
“I wasn’t planning on competing. I actually really had a hard year last year, and I told myself that I’m done competing,” said Camacho. However, he had a change of heart and reached out to inquire about competing. With three weeks to go before the contest, he was officially in. While that may have been short notice, Camacho realized that this was a moment that he’d prepared for long before the competition in Columbus.
“I have been training for years. This is what I do,” said the six-year firefighter. Clearly, that training paid off because he won the contest, and he’d already vowed to defend his title in 2023. While Daniel Camacho is proud of his accomplishment, he takes even more pride in his profession. He told Turell that his entry into firefighting was actually connected to his training.
“I went to a gym in 2011, and the owner was a firefighter. When I got to be around those kinds of guys and see what they do, it made me more interested in it,” he said. “The more I learned about the job, the more it got my interest, and here I am now six years later.”
As for his strongman training, Camacho credited that same gym for inspiring him to start training for the strength sport.
“The owner of the gym was also a pro strongman, and that was how I got into the sport,” he told Turell. “I never thought that I would compete in it. By the end of that first year, I was doing my first competition.”
Camacho shares a lot more about his career, training, and his connection to the Arnold contest in this interview. Catch this and every episode of The Fit Rockstar Show over at www.wingsofstrength.com . Don’t forget to follow @fitrockstarshow on Instagram.
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