Bodybuilding icon Ronnie Coleman can no longer walk
Bodybuilding icon Ronnie Coleman’s sad decline has been exposed in a devastating video after his near-death experience.
Ronnie Coleman has never wavered from his insistence that it was all worth it.
The bodybuilding icon’s physical decline has devastated his legion of fans around the world — and now the saddest video of all has dropped.
One week after thanking his 13-year-old daughter for saving his life from a “serious medical condition”, footage shows Coleman is no longer able to walk.
It is the tragic sight millions around the world have dreaded seeing after the American’s hit 2018 Netflix documentary showed his life was always going to end in tragedy.
One video shared on X shows Coleman needing help to walk up stairs during a recent public appearance.
The viral clip, which shows the agony he experiences moving his body, has broken the hearts of the 61-year-old’s supporters.
The eight-time Mr Olympia champion was hospitalised three weeks’ ago and was suddenly forced to call off an international speaking tour, his family confirmed in a message shared on Instagram.
Coleman provided a scary update on social media last week when confirming to his 12 million Instagram followers he almost died while battling sepsis as a result of an infection in his bloodstream.
After treating his sepsis symptoms, doctors found an underlying health issue that required further treatment.
He underwent successful heart surgery on July 10.
The bodybuilding king showed his positive outlook has not been shaken despite needing to be transferred to a specialised medical facility to treat his condition.
Looking nothing like the freak of nature he once was, Coleman shared a video last week, saying: “This was a tough one y’all and this sepsis infection almost took your boy out.
“It was by the grace of god that I’m still here with you all.”
The once-hulking-specimen went on to say: “Man, let me tell you, these past few weeks have been some of the toughest of my life.
“Your boy was hit with sepsis and it nearly killed me. Had it not been for my 13-year-old daughter, I probably would have.”
In another video, Coleman said: “Couple weeks back, I was in the hospital fighting for my life — sepsis hit me out of nowhere.
“Started from a little infection and next thing I know, my whole body was shutting down. It was by the grace of god that my 13 year old daughter knew to act fast and call 911.”
Even now Coleman still refuses to give up his weightlifting addiction and has still never said publicly he regrets what he did to his body during his bodybuilding career.
He won 26 International Fitness and Bodybuilding titles and was inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame in 2016.
That doesn’t nearly do justice to his achievements in putting bodybuilding competitions on the global stage.
There are some details about his career — and his 150kg frame — that are simply mind-blowing.
Joe Rogan said during an interview with Coleman in 2020 that he wasn’t sure if Coleman was human.
UFC commentator Rogan could barely believe what he was hearing when Coleman said on his podcast his body fat percentage was as low as 0.33 per cent.
To put that into perspective, most people strutting around with body fat lower than 10 per cent are seriously shredded. Ten per cent body fat is something even most elite athletes would be jealous off.
So for Coleman to be 0.33 per cent is completely alien.
No wonder the man was able to develop 61cm arms and a 150cm chest. His iconic 800-pound bench press was off the charts.
Coleman revolutionised the sport by maintaining the symmetry and composition of the sport’s best while blowing them away with his incredible size.
The bodybuilder said he was at his heaviest in competition during his seventh Mr Olympia win, when he tipped the scales at 135kg, but he got up towards 150kg during the “off-season”.
Coleman may have been winning but there’s such a thing as being too big, even in the bodybuilding world. His coaches, and even contest judges, told him he needed to slim down, so he dropped to 125kg before being dethroned by Jay Cutler in 2006.
But Coleman is a far cry from the man mountain who used to flex for a living. Now he can barely walk without excruciating pain.
Bulking up the way he did came with serious health problems later in life. Coleman has suffered serious back issues, had both hips replaced and endured multiple surgeries.
His physical decline was brutally captured in his 2018 Netflix documentary titled Ronnie Coleman: The King. The film can only be described as difficult to watch.
He carries crutches with him at all times in order to stay mobile.
He uses five 30mg oxycodone tablets per day to treat chronic pain.
As shown in the Netflix doco, Coleman had so many operations after his career that surgeons needed to cut through the front of his body to perform one of his many spinal surgeries.
Doctors were forced to temporarily remove his intestines during the procedure because there’s too much scar tissue in his back.
“The pain is a nine or a 10 (out of 10),” Coleman says. “I’ve been in pain for so long now I’m just used to it.”
His life is by no means a complete disaster. 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.
Cutler summed it all up with one comment made to Netflix producers.
“I feel sorry that it happened but I don’t think Ronnie feels bad about it because he did what he had to do to be the greatest bodybuilder of all time,” the former Mr Olympia said.
“And he’ll go down in history as the greatest bodybuilder of all time.”
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