Ronnie Coleman - Dealing with Bodybuilding Injuries

[mryorkielover]

Here is a video from 2014 where I was able to clean up the audio thanks to new software. I eliminated most of the crowd noise since Ronnie talks very softly. Seems to help out a lot  :

.

[pamith]

A true legend of the sport

[Fortress]

Dealing with bodybuilding injuries?

The guy is essentially paralyzed.

Probably chugs a full bottle of painkillers at each meal.

[oldtimer1]

Not just Olympia contestants. How many guys do you know that have lifted for decades have bad shoulders, knees, elbows and backs?  How many guys that have competed in the Olympia have had shoulder operations?  An outsider to the lifting world might come to the conclusion that lifting is bad for you. Lately talking to a bunch of older lifters I've heard a common complaint of compressed vertebrae crushing nerves. It's incapacitating.  One guy said look at my two arms. One delt and arm are atrophied because of spinal stenosis.  If you get stenosis in your neck pushing on nerves you could be in horrific pain unable to function.

So many things we do in the gym are just passed on traditions that are just bad for joint health and spine health. Stuff like repeated internal rotation of the shoulders. The pouring water pitcher motion for dumbbell delt laterals is an example. You can get joint pain in one session doing it or you can do it for decades before it catches up with you. A better movement is to uses thumbs up and slightly bend over dumbbell laterals.

Many movements have high potential for causing problems.   The most famous is the bench. A few lucky ones can bench from when they are 12 till 70 plus but they are the exception to the rule.  Just like the smoker that never had a heart attack or lung cancer but can brag they smoked for 60 years. Bouncing barbell shrugs is another nerve cruncher in the vertebrae. Take a barbell with a million pounds and bounce your shoulders through a one or two inch range of motion crunching nerves will catch up with many. Dumbbell flies for the chest is another shoulder wrecker. Again you can get injured in one set or it could take decades but it will take it's toll on the joint. I could go on with a problematic exercises and what you could do instead that will be safer but most will say empirical knowledge doesn't count. Most young people can't see into their later years so they don't give a fuck.

If you want to look good into your sixties and beyond you should realize that not all exercise is healthy and joint friendly. I for one wished in my forty five plus years of training I could have had a crystal ball into the future.  I would have done some things different.  I would be clicking on all 8 cylinders instead of 6. 

[Dave D]

Not just Olympia contestants. How many guys do you know that have lifted for decades have bad shoulders, knees, elbows and backs?  How many guys that have competed in the Olympia have had shoulder operations?  An outsider to the lifting world might come to the conclusion that lifting is bad for you. Lately talking to a bunch of older lifters I've heard a common complaint of compressed vertebrae crushing nerves. It's incapacitating.  One guy said look at my two arms. One delt and arm are atrophied because of spinal stenosis.  If you get stenosis in your neck pushing on nerves you could be in horrific pain unable to function.

So many things we do in the gym are just passed on traditions that are just bad for joint health and spine health. Stuff like repeated internal rotation of the shoulders. The pouring water pitcher motion for dumbbell delt laterals is an example. You can get joint pain in one session doing it or you can do it for decades before it catches up with you. A better movement is to uses thumbs up and slightly bend over dumbbell laterals.

Many movements have high potential for causing problems.   The most famous is the bench. A few lucky ones can bench from when they are 12 till 70 plus but they are the exception to the rule.  Just like the smoker that never had a heart attack or lung cancer but can brag they smoked for 60 years. Bouncing barbell shrugs is another nerve cruncher in the vertebrae. Take a barbell with a million pounds and bounce your shoulders through a one or two inch range of motion crunching nerves will catch up with many. Dumbbell flies for the chest is another shoulder wrecker. Again you can get injured in one set or it could take decades but it will take it's toll on the joint. I could go on with a problematic exercises and what you could do instead that will be safer but most will say empirical knowledge doesn't count. Most young people can't see into their later years so they don't give a fuck.

If you want to look good into your sixties and beyond you should realize that not all exercise is healthy and joint friendly. I for one wished in my forty five plus years of training I could have had a crystal ball into the future.  I would have done some things different.  I would be clicking on all 8 cylinders instead of 6.

You make great points in here, most of us learned lifting techniques on our own and with other inexperienced training partners.

That said almost every elderly person I know is in poor shape, needing replacement or reconstruction surgery  due to a myriad of reasons and the majority of them aren’t because they were overly physical when they were young.

[Matt]

Dealing with bodybuilding injuries?

The guy is essentially paralyzed.

Probably chugs a full bottle of painkillers at each meal.

I think in his Netflix bio-pic, he said he's on 45mg of Oxycodone every six hours, and it is not enough.

So... roughly 180mg of Oxycodone daily.

That's a substantial habit. Not dangerous [as his body is ADJUSTED to that level of opiates], but substantial, as in - he would be in substantial physical withdrawal if he was forced to go cold turkey off that.

I believe you actually posted that [RE: Ronnie being in withdrawal, if he ever quit].

Yes, he is close to being paralyzed. Talk about sad. And I believe his mother died in 2016 of pancreatic cancer, at only 70.

I'm fine with Ronnie continuing medical opiates...but FFS, I wish he stopped training with weights.

[oldtimer1]

You make great points in here, most of us learned lifting techniques on our own and with other inexperienced training partners.

That said almost every elderly person I know is in poor shape, needing replacement or reconstruction surgery  do to a myriad of reasons and the majority of them aren’t because they were overly physical when they were young.

Look at Zane, Arnold, Draper, Lou, Corney and many others had shoulder operations I believe. Lou Ferrigno, Grimek, Anderson and Bass had hip replacement. Dickerson had shoulders and knee replacement I believe. Yates had both a torn bicep and tricep. Coleman's back is a complete mess from crunching it with heavy weights. I believe as you have stated I guess that many people have bad joints from never being physical in their lives and then we have people who have trained for decades ruining their joints on the other end of the spectrum.

Just saying there are safer ways to lift. It's rare to find a bodybuilder with some decades under their belt without compromised joints. I could write many paragraphs on safer exercise substitutes and what are problematic exercises.

[Bevo]

Proves bbing is more dangerous than pro football, f1 racing, or rugby

[oldtimer1]

Proves bbing is more dangerous than pro football, f1 racing, or rugby

American football players have a very short shelf life except for quarterbacks.  The majority have their bodies ruined in a few short seasons. I'm friends with a guy that was a lineman for the Detroit lions for 7 years.  He said if he knew what would have happened to his body he would have never played foot ball. He played pop warner, high school, division I and pro.  Now at around 60 he can't run a step. Has trouble walking. His knees, back and shoulders are shot. He can't lift weights and said he probably couldn't do push ups because of his shot shoulders. He has mental problems from all the concussions. All that crashing into huge, powerful fast guys destroyed his body.  He doesn't even want to talk about football. The guy came from a broken family too as a kid. He grew up across the street from my wife and they are the same age. My wife told me one day he got into a fight with his brother and they both picked up cinder blocks and were hitting each other with it. My wife showed me pictures of him as a young adult on the beach and he looked like a bodybuilder and was about 275lbs as linemen were from that era. Having that size and being explosive is some dangerous combination.

[wes]

I know I never had legs but I trained my legs fucking hard using every scenario you could think of at one time or another.

RESULT:  My knees are starting to hurt bad if I`m in a squatting position for any length of time.......this just started fairly recently so I`ve been lucky.........good form was imperative with me no matter how heavy I went.

I had  fucked up shoulders but not training for a good while now seems to have healed them.

My lower back and neck are fucked up daily to certain degrees depending on the day.

I`m starting light training again today in the hope that I can fuck up some new bodypart that han`t been affected yet. lol

[mphgrove]

Not just Olympia contestants. How many guys do you know that have lifted for decades have bad shoulders, knees, elbows and backs?  How many guys that have competed in the Olympia have had shoulder operations?  An outsider to the lifting world might come to the conclusion that lifting is bad for you. Lately talking to a bunch of older lifters I've heard a common complaint of compressed vertebrae crushing nerves. It's incapacitating.  One guy said look at my two arms. One delt and arm are atrophied because of spinal stenosis.  If you get stenosis in your neck pushing on nerves you could be in horrific pain unable to function.

So many things we do in the gym are just passed on traditions that are just bad for joint health and spine health. Stuff like repeated internal rotation of the shoulders. The pouring water pitcher motion for dumbbell delt laterals is an example. You can get joint pain in one session doing it or you can do it for decades before it catches up with you. A better movement is to uses thumbs up and slightly bend over dumbbell laterals.

Many movements have high potential for causing problems.   The most famous is the bench. A few lucky ones can bench from when they are 12 till 70 plus but they are the exception to the rule.  Just like the smoker that never had a heart attack or lung cancer but can brag they smoked for 60 years. Bouncing barbell shrugs is another nerve cruncher in the vertebrae. Take a barbell with a million pounds and bounce your shoulders through a one or two inch range of motion crunching nerves will catch up with many. Dumbbell flies for the chest is another shoulder wrecker. Again you can get injured in one set or it could take decades but it will take it's toll on the joint. I could go on with a problematic exercises and what you could do instead that will be safer but most will say empirical knowledge doesn't count. Most young people can't see into their later years so they don't give a fuck.

If you want to look good into your sixties and beyond you should realize that not all exercise is healthy and joint friendly. I for one wished in my forty five plus years of training I could have had a crystal ball into the future.  I would have done some things different.  I would be clicking on all 8 cylinders instead of 6.

Question: which specific joints is the pouring water pitcher dumbbell laterals hard on? I do them that way standing completely upright. I have been told bending over is often harder on back? I am trying to learn here to both protect shoulders and back as an older bodybuilder.

[epic is back]

I know I never had legs but I trained my legs fucking hard using every scenario you could think of at one time or another.

RESULT:  My knees are starting to hurt bad if I`m in a squatting position for any length of time.......this just started fairly recently so I`ve been lucky.........good form was imperative with me no matter how heavy I went.

I had  fucked up shoulders but not training for a good while now seems to have healed them.

My lower back and neck are fucked up daily to certain degrees depending on the day.

I`m starting light training again today in the hope that I can fuck up some new bodypart that han`t been affected yet. lol

your a tiny tit

you got all that bad shit going on? you weight like 145 lbs?

there's no  weight on your joints

[Bevo]

American football players have a very short shelf life except for quarterbacks.  The majority have their bodies ruined in a few short seasons. I'm friends with a guy that was a lineman for the Detroit lions for 7 years.  He said if he knew what would have happened to his body he would have never played foot ball. He played pop warner, high school, division I and pro.  Now at around 60 he can't run a step. Has trouble walking. His knees, back and shoulders are shot. He can't lift weights and said he probably couldn't do push ups because of his shot shoulders. He has mental problems from all the concussions. All that crashing into huge, powerful fast guys destroyed his body.  He doesn't even want to talk about football. The guy came from a broken family too as a kid. He grew up across the street from my wife and they are the same age. My wife told me one day he got into a fight with his brother and they both picked up cinder blocks and were hitting each other with it. My wife showed me pictures of him as a young adult on the beach and he looked like a bodybuilder and was about 275lbs as linemen were from that era. Having that size and being explosive is some dangerous combination.

There’s no difference in your friend or Ronnie, Ronnie is in a wheelchair, taking 20 pills a day, 20+ surgeries, body decomposing before our eyes, he’s not even 60 yet. In fact Ronnie is worse off than your friend I imagine

Flex wheeler is a one leg gimp,  kidney transplanted

List goes on

NFL over bbing in a heartbeat, money is also greater, easy choice

[Matt]

I know I never had legs but I trained my legs fucking hard using every scenario you could think of at one time or another.

RESULT:  My knees are starting to hurt bad if I`m in a squatting position for any length of time.......this just started fairly recently so I`ve been lucky.........good form was imperative with me no matter how heavy I went.

I had  fucked up shoulders but not training for a good while now seems to have healed them.

My lower back and neck are fucked up daily to certain degrees depending on the day.

I`m starting light training again today in the hope that I can fuck up some new bodypart that han`t been affected yet. lol

What can we expect as we get older?

Sounds to me like in your quest to build leg mass, you maxed out a lot.

Notice that Gunter never trained that way - he was strictly training to maximize muscle mass concentration.

Ronnie probably resulted in quite a few injuries, by motivating people to train super hard. Dorian Yates too. In fact...that 1980's bodybuilder who came back in 2006 said he tore his pec from doing Dorian's high intensity training. The one Lee Priest said was on Ritalin at the Australian Pro. I forget his name.