Ronnie Coleman knows you’re worried about his health, and that you probably think he should slow down or stop working out altogether. But The King has an important message for you: he’s not quitting the gym—ever. In fact, he would rather work out than eat or sleep, he revealed in his latest Instagram post.
“Trust me, I love you guys to death for being concerned about me but it’s not gonna happen,” he wrote. “In closing I would like to say, oh yeah it ain’t over mulbuckers, once again it’s on like Ding Dongs.”
You can see the post, which includes a video of him doing cable curls, below:
The eight-time Mr. Olympia is on the road to recovery after multiple spinal surgeries and being told late last year he might never walk again. Largely against medical advice, he’s continually trained in an effort to prevent his massive muscles from atrophying. But in a recent post, he revealed that he’d taken a six-month hiatus from working out until his doctor cleared him to train again—not that you could tell from his still-jacked biceps
Unlike previous updates, where he’s seen sitting down, Coleman is standing in his latest post—a promising sign of progress for the 55-year-old following his latest surgery. Still, many of his fans have urged him to give it a break so that his body could heal properly.
“Yeah I know what some of you are thinking and no I’m NEVER gonna quit working out,” he stated in his latest post. “Working out is the best thing to happen to me all day.”
He even called out 2008 Mr. Olympia Dexter Jackson, who said he viewed Coleman as a “cautionary tale” during an interview with Generation Iron. The Blade said Coleman and other bodybuilding greats—such as Dorian Yates—should have transitioned to machine weights as they aged to prevent serious injuries.
“I said, ‘Yeah I’m not going to go that route, I want to last longer,’” Jackson told the website. “I love [Coleman] to death and it just hurts me to see him go from where he was to where he is now. It hurts.” He later added, “Ronnie, come on, you got to let it go.”
Coleman responded in his Instagram post by saying, “So @mrolympia08 and all the rest of you guys, quit wasting your breath and your time commenting and giving out y’all’s lame ass advice about me quitting.”
So whether you agree with Coleman’s habits or not, it’s clear we’ll be seeing a lot more of him in the gym. After all, this is the guy who once said, “God knows I don’t want to die in the gym but if that happens, God Bless me.”
