‘Greatest’ bodybuilder whose power ‘wasn’t human’ vows ‘I’ll stroll once more’ after well being woes

The bodybuilding ‘King’, Ronnie Coleman, uses a wheelchair due to chronic pain caused by his career, but he has promised fans he won’t give up until he is walking again

Ronnie Coleman, a bodybuilder often regarded the greatest of all-time, has vowed that he will walk again after his career resulted in him needing dozens of surgeries.

Known as ‘The King’, Coleman has had double hip replacements and surgeries to try to alleviate chronic pain from damaged intervertebral disks. He uses a wheelchair but has insisted that he will walk again.

Reflecting on the past year, Coleman shared videos of him training to walk again in a swimming pool in November. “I’m not going to give up on this until I am walking again,” he tells viewers in the clip.

Coleman has had eight surgeries on his back, three on his neck and three on his hips. He said: “Every surgery I do, it takes strength from me. The more surgeries I do, the weaker I get. Now I’m back to doing therapy again.”

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After trying physical therapy, the bodybuilder decided to rehabilitate himself by training at the gym, but this was ineffective as he was only working his big muscles. “You’ve got to work the smaller muscles also, but I didn’t do that and I got worse,” he said.

Coleman now sees a physical therapist twice a week and does pool exercises three times a week. “It’s going to take at least six months to get good strength back,” he said. “I’m giving myself about a year and a half to be walking maybe with a cane and then eventually to get to where I can walk without a cane, I’m looking at two years.”

Sharing the record for the most Mr Olympia titles at eight with Lee Haney, Coleman has also won 26 IFBB professional titles and is the strongest Mr Olympia of all time. He was inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame in 2016. At his peak, his strength and body “wasn’t human,” according to Kevin Levrone, a fellow weightlifting champion. “You don’t have a chance of looking like him. It’s a gift from God. It’s a gift of genetics,” Levrone said.

Now 60, the Louisiana born champion told fans “real soon I’ll be walking” and showed off his pool workout which included leg kicks, steps and lifts. In 2018, a documentary about Coleman called Ronnie Coleman: The King was released which detailed his health concerns. In the film a doctor discusses Coleman’s herniated disks in his back: “He wanted to be the number one bodybuilder in the world. But of course, eventually, with the massive weights that he was lifting, those disks can many, many times pay a pretty heavy price.”

Despite his injuries, Coleman still works out. In the film the doctor says: “He is still working out, I don’t think he’ll ever stop. It’s probably not the best thing but for his overall wellbeing, I think he needs to.” Six years later and Coleman still uploads videos to his YouTube, Instagram and X pages sharing videos of his workouts.

In addition to his successful bodybuilding career and huge presence on social media, Coleman also has his own line of supplements called Ronnie Coleman Signature Series. In 2016, Coleman married his long-term girlfriend, Susan Williamson, and they live in Texas with their four daughters.