Joshua grew up in Sale, Victoria, a country town of just 12,000 people. The youngest of three boys, his first athletic pursuits were basketball and swimming. The men of the house also loved to arm-wrestle each other, and perhaps as a portent to the future, young Joshua was able to beat them all by the time he hit puberty. His older brother Adam was the first of the family to show an interest in bodybuilding, taking a job working the front desk at a local gym.

When Josh was only 12, it was a poster of the 1995 Mr. Olympia posedown on his brother’s wall that sparked what would become his passion in life. “I had never realized human beings could look like those guys: Dorian, Kevin Levrone, Shawn Ray, Nasser, and Flex,” he recalls. “It was a photo of Dorian Yates in his front lat spread that impressed me the most and absolutely made me want to become a bodybuilder,” he says. He got a VHS copy of “Pumping Iron” and watched it dozens of times and provided himself a proper basic education by means of three books he read over and over: Arnold’s Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding, Strength Training Anatomy by Frederic Delavier, and Power Eating by Susan Kleiner.

Unfortunately, his father felt 12 was too young to be lifting weights, and didn’t lift that ban until Josh was 14. “That’s when I was old enough to work, and he said if I got a job I could start training too,” he explains. In his unbound enthusiasm, Josh would wake up at 5:30 a.m. every morning and ride his bike to the gym to train before school. “It was a little gym and we were out in the country,” he says. “One day I was doing a set on the bench press and a ram wandered inside.” Humble beginnings to be sure, but Lenartowicz was well on his way.

Lizzie, whose love and support has kept him going even when he had his moments of doubt. Her father Sanitesi Latu, who was Australia’s decathlon champion in 1974 and 1978, provided tremendous moral support.

Not every father-in-law would encourage his daughter’s husband to pursue his dreams of being one of the world’s best bodybuilders, but he told Josh to “give it everything you have, so you can look back later on with no regrets.” Josh also thanks top Australian promoter and gym owner Tony Doherty for all his help and encouragement, as well as New Zealand’s Moe Moussawi.