“Now I look at it and think ‘what did it?’. “It hits hard for me because I stood next to him and battled him and I admired the way he trained and sometimes thought ‘man, I wish I could do that’. I wouldn’t want any of those trophies to have the body Ronnie has at 53, 54 years old.” “I can’t feel sad for Ronnie Coleman because I knew there’d be a price to pay for what he was doing and I think for him that price was worth it,” Ray said.
He is happily married with four children and started a supplement company that now turns over north of 15 million dollars every year and allows him to travel the globe attending bodybuilding events. His life is by no means a complete disaster. “I’m really in a state of shock because after the same results after the same surgery you kinda get use to being not able to walk and come to expect it.” God is truly blessing me this time around because he knows that I definitely need the inspiration because lately I’ve been semi-depressed after all my surgeries. This is the best I’ve felt after my last three surgeries. “Normally I’m on my way to rehab so they can help me to learn to walk again. “Two days after surgery and it’s a miracle that I can walk,” he wrote. But for his overall wellbeing, I think he needs to (keep working out).”Īfter his most recent surgery in September this year Coleman excitedly told his 2.8 million Instagram followers how excited he was to be able to walk. “If I had to pick, just for his back, (working out) is not the best thing. “It’s what he lives for, so we’re just taking care of it,” he says. “I’ve been in pain for so long now I’m just used to it.”ĭespite this life of agony it’s revealed the now 54-year-old still goes to gym at 4.30am every day.ĭr Michael Hisey, an orthopaedic surgeon at the Texas Back Institute, describes Coleman’s condition as an “advanced stage of degeneration” from the “wear and tear of all the weight he’s put on his back over the years”.īut he doesn’t go as far as telling Coleman to stop training.
“The pain is a nine or a 10 (out of 10),” Coleman says. At this point he’d had so many operations surgeons are forced to cut through the front of his body - temporarily removing his intestines - because there’s so much scar tissue in his back.
It’s Coleman’s eighth surgery that is documented in the film. He stopped competing a few years later and soon began suffering from chronic injuries to hips - both of which have been replaced - and his lower back. Picture: NetflixĬoleman won eight consecutive Mr Olympia titles before being dethroned by Cutler in 2006. His rivals used phrases like “there was nobody you could compare him to”, “he just wasn’t human”, “this guy looked like an alien” and “meat was just hanging off his back” to describe the Louisiana native in his prime.īut it’s a much different story today as he pays the price of the enormous strain he put on his body for decades - and still refuses to stop working out.Ī look at Coleman's screwed up spine. The two crutches he needs to get anywhere.Ĭoleman’s harrowing fall from the greatest bodybuilder in history to a shell of the man who redefined a sport is documented in a new film uploaded to Netflix this month and it’s incredibly difficult to watch.
The 10 surgeries to his back and hips that force him to relearn how to walk every year. The five 30mg oxycodone tablets he chews every day. The insane measurements of his chest (150cm) and arms (61cm).īut now the digits that define his existence are incredibly depressing. The 800-pound squat he famously repped twice. The record eight Mr Olympia titles he won as the world’s best bodybuilder. RONNIE Coleman never used his college degree in accounting, but numbers have still ruled his life.