Was Ronnie Coleman natural? It’s one of the most Googled questions about the bodybuilding legend. It’s not that most people believe he won a record-tying eight Mr. Olympias without taking anabolic steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs. It’s that he earned the right to compete as a professional bodybuilder by winning a drug-tested contest (as seen in the photo above). So, how long was Coleman drug-free, and how great was he before he ever pressed a needle into his flesh?
The Barbell investigates the full story of when Ronnie Coleman was natural and when he wasn’t. And it brings up another question: Is he the GOAT of natural bodybuilding?
THE OTHER RONALD COLEMAN
First, let’s clarify that there are actually two former pro bodybuilders named Ronald Coleman, and they both started on the same path.
◼️ Both were born in 1964.
◼️ As amateurs, they competed in the same prestigious contests in 1991—the NPC Nationals and IFBB World Championships.
◼️ The other Ronald Coleman answers to Ron, is an inch or so shorter than Ronnie, and he was a drug-free competitive bodybuilder. He turned pro in 1994 by winning the light-heavyweight class at the drug-tested World Championships, three years after Ronnie did the same there in the heavyweight class.
After that, their paths diverged. Ron Coleman competed only twice, unsuccessfully, in IFBB Pro League contests, in 1998. In contrast, Ronnie Coleman won his first of eight consecutive Olympias in 1998. Ron Coleman was a judge at (drug-tested) MuscleMania contests and wrote for All-Natural Muscular Development magazine for years.
Still, ever since 1991, Ron and Ronnie Coleman have been linked. So, if you’re reading something about natural bodybuilder Ron Coleman, know that that’s probably not the legendary Ronnie Coleman.
RONNIE COLEMAN: PRE-1991
Though Ronnie Coleman came to bodybuilding late, he began training with weights around the same time as most boys: 13. He competed in a powerlifting meet when a teenage football player. As a walk-on, Coleman made the Grambling State University football team. In a photo from that time, he already sports the arms of a bodybuilder. He was just naturally muscular and responded much more quickly than others to typical football weight room workouts.
In 1989, Coleman began working as a police officer in Arlington, Texas. The station had a small weight room where he trained. When a fellow officer told him, as a cop, he could train for free at Metroflex Gym, Coleman was soon a member of the hardcore gym. Metroflex owner Brian Dobson told me how wowed he was by Coleman from the day they met. Ronnie already had the physique of a very good bodybuilder and the strength of a very good powerlifter.
And when Coleman began a bodybuilding routine and high-protein diet, the gains came astonishingly fast. There was no reason for drugs then. “It’s a genetics thing,” Coleman later said. He was truly a bodybuilding natural—a freak of nature, a genetic marvel. There is perhaps no endeavor in which DNA is more crucial to success than competitive bodybuilding, and Ronnie Coleman was one of the one in a million who had the perfect genes to make muscle.
At Dobson’s encouragement, mere months after taking up bodybuilding, Ronnie Coleman entered and won a contest—the biggest in one of the biggest states—the 1990 Mr. Texas. Later that year, he finished third in the heavyweight class of the NPC Nationals—the biggest amateur contest in America. By all accounts (including Dobson’s to me), the rookie bodybuilder was still skating along on just his natural ability. Why should he take PEDs if he was accomplishing so much without them?
RONNIE COLEMAN: 1991 (DRUG-TESTED)
1991 was the year Ronnie Coleman arrived, naturally. After a disappointing 14th place heavyweight finish in the USA Championships, he landed in fourth amongst heavies in the NPC Nationals, now celebrated for being the most loaded amateur contest of all time. (By the way, there was no super-heavy class then.) It was at that show, when 27-year-old Coleman was first drug-tested, not for the Nationals, but to determine who in each weight class could best represent America at the drug-tested World Championships. Coleman knew he would pass.
Bodybuilding legend Chris Cormier was seventh in that same Nationals class. Like everyone else near the top, except Coleman, he wasn’t drug-free and so didn’t do the urine test. Cormier recently said: “I didn’t even go to the test. I said I’m not going to go. Ronnie placed ahead of me. I know he’s natural. Why would I waste my time going to get tested?”
To show how rare it was that the fourth best American amateur heavyweight was drug-free, Ron Coleman also passed the test at this Nationals, and he was the highest placing light-heavy to do so. But Ron was only the 15th best light-heavyweight.
Ronnie Coleman then had a superb V-taper and excellent high-peaked biceps. His legs lagged his upper half a little, but at the Nationals they splintered into zippered cross striations. He traveled to Poland, where he won the heavyweight class of the 1991 World Amateur Championships, after again passing a drug test.
RONNIE COLEMAN: 1992 (ROOKIE)
The World Championship victory earned Ronnie Coleman the right to turn professional. He competed in three contests in 1992, looking similar to how he had the year before, and failed to make an impact. He was 14th in one show, 11th in another, and he failed to place in the Mr. Olympia (the top 15 placed), punked by several dudes you’ve likely never heard of.
On June 10, 1992, after the first two of those contests but before the Olympia, Ronnie Coleman appeared on a Texas Rangers pre-game TV show. The interviewer said, “There are gonna be people sitting out there saying, ‘Man, this guy must pop steroids by the handful.’”
Coleman answered, “Oh but no. I’m going to fool a lot of people, and I’m still fooling a lot of people who don’t think I’m drug-free. I’ll take a drug test anytime, any day, any place, and anywhere, but at your expense. As a matter of fact, I took two before I won the Mr. Universe [World Championships]….Unfortunately, there’s no drug tests in the pro ranks. Needless to say, I’m one of maybe two drug-free bodybuilders in the pros…It’s that prevalent, and they ain’t trying to hide it.”
(The Arnold Classic and Mr. Olympia were drug-tested in 1990, but that was a one-year thing and too soon for Coleman.)
The interviewer asked: “Does that make you mad a little bit? I mean you’re going to go out there with guys who’re using something artificial.”
“Well, it’s like this. God gives everybody talent. And He gave me the talent to be a drug-free bodybuilder, so that’s where I’m using mine.”
RONNIE COLEMAN 1993-94
In 1993, Ronnie Coleman competed in four pro bodybuilding shows, placing fourth once and six three times.
He was making progress, but not a lot. The same could be said of 1994 when he placed third in two pro shows and fourth in another, but was 15th out of 23 in the Mr. Olympia. So, he was the 15th best bodybuilder in the world in the very competitive 1990s. But was he still drug-free? If we take his word for it, yes. He recently claimed of these years, “I was so afraid to do all that stuff back then.”
WHEN DID RONNIE FIRST USE STEROIDS?
Ronnie Coleman has been very consistent about this whenever asked, including by me 17 years ago: He was drug-free until he was 30. He also says he first used steroids “sometime in 1995 or 1996.” Because he turned 30 on May 13, 1994, and 31 in 1995, and the contention is, by him and others (including, recently, Milos Sarcev) that he was still natural at the 1994 Mr. Olympia, held on September 10, it’s reasonable to assume Coleman began taking PEDs in the spring of 1995 before he won his first pro show (Canada Pro Cup) and finished third against stiff competition in the Night of Champions. He had a different physique beginning then: fuller, wider, bigger.
“Well, I got a lot of information from Flex Wheeler,” Coleman said recently about his first steroid cycle. “Flex had been around. He won a lot of stuff. I wonder what he’s doing. You want to find out what somebody is doing, you go straight to them and ask them. You don’t go to some fan on the street or you don’t go to his friend. You go to him, you know, and hopefully he’ll tell you. With Flex, he was quite honest with me, because everything he told me worked…Everything that I put in my body, you know, was doctor-prescribed. And every four months I would get a check-up and make sure the liver was right, the kidneys were right, the heart was right. You know, I had everything checked. I never had a problem. You need to have your body checked out at least every six months, don’t go six months without checking it. I’ve never went six months without checking it even now.”
He claimed to not remember the dosages. “It’s been so long ago. It was just normal. I just know it was like normal dosages. People think I took you know massive, massive amounts. I’m like, ‘No, no.’ If I would have taken massive, massive amounts, I don’t think I’d be sitting here.” In fact, I’ve heard from a reliable source that his dosages were significantly lower than what most of the top pro bodybuilders were taking in the mid-1990s. He only caught up to a “normal dosage” in 1998, working with a new coach, and that was the year his physique transformed yet again and he won his first of eight Mr. Olympias.
IS RONNIE COLEMAN LYING?
Was Ronnie Coleman ever truly drug-free in a bodybuilding contest? We can’t be certain. Could he have halted or lowered dosages enough to pass those two drug tests in 1991? Perhaps. We understand the doubts about Coleman never using anabolic steroids or other PEDs until he was 30. He had a phenomenal physique in his late 20s in the early ’90s, even if he was using. We get it. And we remember the lies of Lance Armstrong and other athletes who denied, denied, denied, until the truth came out. They were dedicated long-term liars.
But Ronnie Coleman isn’t denying that he benefited greatly from drugs in bodybuilding contests from 1995 until he retired in 2007. So, how does it profit him to lie about being drug-free until 1995? After his first bodybuilding contest in 1990, he never again won a non-tested contest. He turned pro by winning his class at the World Championships, where everyone was tested. Then, in 11 non-tested pro shows over three years, the best he did was place third, twice.
So, by his own admission, he never won a pro contest without drugs, and his highest Olympia placing then was 15th. Furthermore, it wasn’t as if he gained financially or otherwise from any promotion as “the great natural bodybuilder.” That wasn’t a thing. He just went about his life during his first pro years, working as a police officer and competing unsuccessfully. That hardly seems worthy of a lie that he would carry on for decades to this very day.
Furthermore, if he was natural in 1991 when he passed two urine tests, his physique didn’t change dramatically after that until the mid-90s, when he says he began using anabolic steroids and when he began winning pro shows. And, as for his strength, he competed in the Texas Deadlift Classic each year from 1991 to 1994, and his best deadlift only increased from 695 pounds to 727.5 pounds, less than 10% over three years. No dramatic change, even though he moved up into a heavier weight class the final year. Again, if he was natural in 1991, it seems he still was in 1994. By contrast, in 2000, on video, he deadlifted 755 for four reps and 800 pounds for two (both feats equal about 827 pounds for a single rep). There’s your dramatic change.
We cannot be certain about this. But, for the record, I believe him. Ronnie Coleman has been consistent with his story about when he didn’t use steroids and when he did. And people in the know whose opinions I respect, including Brian Dobson, back him up. To me, it seems more likely that he’s telling the truth about when he was natural and when he wasn’t than that he’s lying. But it remains an open question.
IS RONNIE THE GOAT OF NATURAL BODYBUILDING?
It’s debatable whether or not Ronnie Coleman is the GOAT of bodybuilding for his eight consecutive Mr. Olympia victories. The more intriguing question is whether he’s the GOAT of natural bodybuilding for the physique he displayed from 1991-94: four years in which he won his class at the drug-tested World Championships, placed in the top six in seven pro shows, and finished 15th in a Mr. Olympia. Of course, the answer to this question depends on whether or not you believe he didn’t use performance-enhancing drugs until 1995 when he was 30.
One thing is certain, Ronnie Coleman was a genetic freak, arguably the most blessed bodybuilder of all time. And this was most apparent in those pre-1995 years when he still had a miniscule waist and freakishly aesthetic body. Just based on the body he displayed on stages at the drug-tested World Championships in 1991, Ronnie was perhaps the greatest natural bodybuilder of all time.
See also: What Happened to Ronnie Coleman?
