When eight-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman gets asked if would he do anything different, he responds in perfect Ronnie fashion, “I would have trained harder!”

In many ways, Coleman’s workouts were a throwback to an earlier era. He stressed body parts twice weekly and often trained twice daily, and he emphasized free-weight basics. For example, his typical chest exercises were all presses: flat, incline, and decline with a barbell in one workout and with dumbbells in the next. What distinguished him were the numbers he put up for 10 to 12 reps in workout after workout for more than a decade. There were 2,300-pound leg presses, 540-pound T-bar rows, 200-pound incline dumbbell presses, and 700-pound behind-the-back shrugs.

While Ronnie Coleman’s balls-to-the-wall, all-out training isn’t for the faint of heart, the simplistic, yet effective rules that he followed will stand the test of time.

Here are ten pieces of training advice, straight from the King himself.

SNAPSHOT: Ronnie Coleman

  • Birthdate: May 13, 1964
  • Height: 5’11”
  • Contest Weight: 296 lbs
  • Birthplace: Monroe, Louisiana
  • Olympia Wins: 8 (1998-2005)
  • Instagram: @ronniecoleman8
Ronnie Coleman

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