New London – For years, Samer Delgado watched “American Ninja Warrior” and thought, “That’s me 100 percent. I could do that,” of the incredibly fit and athletic contestants who run a Herculean obstacle course. 

Now the 31-year-old city man, a personal trainer and elite calisthenics athlete, will get the chance to prove his boasting hasn’t just been bluster.

Delgado, a 6-foot, 187-pound single father of two young daughters, was chosen as one of about 600 athletes from a pool of more than 77,000 applicants to participate in the ninth season of NBC’s popular prime-time series “American Ninja Warrior.”

He will compete in the Cleveland regionals May 8-9, and is scheduled to appear on the fifth episode of the show July 10. (There are about 110 athletes at each of the six regionals, and about 30 from each host city move on to regional finals. That number is then whittled to 15 from each region who go on to the finale, called Mount Midoriyama, held in Las Vegas.) Season 9 will premiere June 12.

At the regionals, athletes run a course of five obstacles; at the finals, there are nine.

For the uninitiated, participants are timed as they race the course and maneuver hardships like the concave 14 ½-foot “Warped Wall,” which they must scale, and the “Flying Shelf Grab,” where they take hold of a bar, swing and catch themselves on a small shelf, then swing to another shelf, and finally to a platform.

The “Invisible Ladder” requires contestants to grab two rings and use their arms and upper body strength to hoist themselves up 30 feet. On the “Salmon Ladder,” they must extend a bar up five consecutive rungs, the ultimate muscle-up.

Other hindrances like the “Spinning Log,” “Flying Squirrel” and “Devil Steps” all live up to their names, and Delgado, who has practiced them all, is ready to compete.

About a year ago, he was invited to test the obstacles for the Philadelphia regionals, before show contestants ran the course. Always intrigued by “American Ninja Warrior,” he had met some athletes who had participated on it in the past, and he learned about the National Ninja League, an organization of Ninja gyms and enthusiasts across the country.

That connection led Delgado to Philadelphia, and his role as a “tester’ for the 2016 regional course there. And it convinced him it was finally time to apply to be on the prime-time show.

He labored over his application that required making a 2 ½-minute video and completing a detailed written questionnaire. The show’s casting staff wants to ensure applicants are not just fit but are also interesting.

Delgado featured his athleticism and his family in his video. He included clips of handstands, flips and jumps on bars, and some fancywork on the handle of his grocery cart at the local market. While shopping with his daughters, he held a handstand on the cart’s handle as they moved down the aisle picking up groceries, and later, in the market’s lot, where he was upside down as they headed for his car.

“I wanted to show them I’m different from other people who do the show,” he said. “There are a lot of daredevils on the show, but not like me.” 

A native of Venezuela who immigrated with his mother to this country more than 20 years ago, Delgado wasn’t always an elite athlete. Six years ago, he was eating junk food and smoking cigarettes when he decided to turn his life around. He always knew, he said, that he had natural athletic talent that he hadn’t maximized.

Then that changed. Delgado started working out and realized how much better he felt and how much he liked what he was doing.

“I love movement, and I love anything that is extreme and anything where I get to use my body to do it,” he said. “I like crazy.”

He became a certified personal trainer and a nationally recognized “street workout” athlete.

Street workouts are popular in urban areas and include a mix of showmanship and calisthenics — push-ups, pull-ups, dips and squats. They’re typically done on the street, not in gyms, and for the more advanced enthusiasts, there are moves like human flags — hanging on to a vertical bar and holding a horizontal side plank while suspended — and planches — holding the body parallel to the ground by two extended hands to give the illusion of floating. 

Delgado is a master of the handstand. Walking down the street, he sees handstand pedestals where other people see ordinary objects — the tail of the whale on the sculpture opposite Union Station in downtown New London; a street sign or statue; a ramp of the George Washington Bridge.

He’s a member of the international BarStarzz Calisthenics, an elite group of street workout athletes, and he will use the name “Barstarzz Ninja” for the NBC show.

And he’s got more than 60,000 followers on Instagram (fitnessblazt) and favors the hashtag #nofearhere.

Delgado believes he’s got a good shot at being among the top finishers at the regionals and moving on, but he’s not taking anything for granted.

“If you fall at any point, you’re done,” he said. 

He’s training, focusing on improving his forearm and finger muscle strength so he can hang onto ledges and edges in the competition.

“I have back strength and pull-up power, but if I can’t hang on to what I’m gripping, that means nothing,” he said.

To be a winner, contestants must not only be fit, but athletic, too, said Delgado. 

“There’s a difference,” he said. “If you are athletic, you are more in tune with your body, and you’re able to do things with it that other people can’t do. You need to be athletic and fit and fearless, and you need to be strong in both mind and body.”

He submitted his application in early January and got the phone call that he was accepted as a contestant in early April.

He was speechless when the call came.

“Things like this don’t happen to me. They never do,” he said. “This is an amazing opportunity. It’s a chance for me to change my future.”

Delgado is raising funds to get to Cleveland and take his daughters, Samarie, 13, and Tayana, 11, with him, selling T-shirts and asking community stakeholders for support. (For T-shirts, visit www.booster.com and search for “Barstarzz Ninja.”)

And he’s training hard “so the whole world will see I’m a top Ninja competitor,” he said.

The time has come, said Delgado, to see if he’s as good as he believes.

“I want to prove to myself that all those years of watching the show, and I would say, ‘I can do that,’ I want to prove I was right when I said that,” he said.