Ain't nothin' but a peanut: why Ronnie Coleman is Mr. Olympia

Flex, Nov, 2004 by Greg Merritt

Without warning, the weight crashes back to the decimated floor, throwing up a lung-choking cloud. The V-handle snapped midway through his set! "God-darn it," Coleman says. Although musical curses thunder incessantly wherever he goes--gym, house, Escalade--this is as close as I hear him come to swearing in the two days Kevin Horton and I spend with him. Coleman kicks at the broken handle, freeing it from the barbell it's tangled around. Mr. Olympia took on a ridiculously dangerous amount of weight. The weight lost.

TRAIN HARDER AND GROW BIGGER | Coleman guzzles water from a bottle as he stomps across the room. The cement dust clings to his sweat-soaked face and arms. "The hardest part about working out is staying consistent," he states. "I've been doing it for 28 years now. I've seen a lot of people come and go. The secret to my success is staying consistent, always trying to get stronger, train harder and grow bigger."

He commences his biceps work with 40-pound one-arm dumbbell preacher curls, follows with a 50-pound dumbbell and finishes with 65, getting 10-12 reps per set and maintaining a brisk pace. Next, performing barbell curls with a slight sway, he reps out three sets of 12 with 135. He is one of the few pros to perform these with a straight bar, as many feel straight bars strain their wrists. Even at age 40, Coleman seems impervious to injuries.

AC/DC is chanting about "dirty deeds done dirt cheap" when the champ finishes bis with cable curls. Facing away from the stack, he pulls the cable up between his massive legs. He begins with 130 and works to the bottom of the 190-pound stack, completing four sets of 10-12 reps. Afterward, Coleman drawls, "I always do something different each workout. Next time for biceps, I'll probably do preacher curls, machine curls, standing dumbbell curls and maybe concentration curls."

SHAKE THEM HATERS OFF | Mr. Olympia's calves and abdomen are frequently criticized, yet the champ has never neglected them. He trains them every other day, calves one day, abs the next. In person, Coleman's lower legs look huge. It is only in relation to the rest of his physique that his calves are overwhelmed, just as Louisiana looks small next to Texas. As Coleman loads the seated calf machine, he parrots the saying on the back of his shirt: "Shake them haters off." He does 20 reps with 160, focusing much more on the contraction than the stretch. For his second set of 20, he drops another plate on the stack (205 total), and for his third and final set, he goes up to 250 for 15 short reps.

Coleman and I pile dusty plates on the leg-press machine, 10 on each side (900 pounds total). He cinches up his belt and proceeds to do three sets of calf presses, completing around 15 short reps each time. It seems his feet are barely moving. (This brings up the question of whether Coleman's calves would be even better if he performed full reps.) Finally, he turns to a plate-loaded standing calf machine that seems to date back to the Sig Klein era. He slaps on 10 plates (450 pounds) and bounces out 15 short reps. Then, as sweat streams from his bald head and Ozzy Osbourne invites everyone to get on the "Crazy Train," he adds four more plates (630 total) and pumps out two more sets of 12-15 short reps.