Coleman, “The King” ENGLISH

Coleman, "The King"

By: Erreh Svaia

Caprine Dispersion

A few months ago I traveled to Texas, usually most of the low level jobs in the state are performed by Afro-Americans from Louisiana, obviously these people have moved to Texas in search of better opportunities, not always happening, so it is more memorable the success of someone like Ronnie Coleman, police of the city of Arlington and the greatest champion in the history of bodybuilding, possessor of an unprecedented streak of triumphs that place him above the legendary Lee Haney, who would be the first to impose the record of 8 continuous Mr. Olympia championships (the highest title of that sport), Dorian Yates, who would be the successor of Haney and pioneer of an impressive volume aesthetic, or the popular and well-known Arnold Schwarzenegger, so imagine my surprise to find "The King", a documentary about Coleman's history in the world of bodybuilding, its origins, its development and his unexpected rise within the leagues of competition, his transformation based on hard effort in the maximum icon of the sport, managing to combine the prodigious development of Lee Haney with the enormous volume of Yates.

There was a time when I became a faithful follower of the discipline, I lived in the Yates era, in which Dorian emerged from being an English punk behind prison bars into an exemplary champion imposing a new aesthetic not seen before, in addition to a radical training philosophy based on the teachings of people like Mike Mentzer (Heavy Duty), I walked away from the sport almost as Yates began to contemplate his retirement after a series of strong injuries in arms and legs that were taking him to consider moving away from the circle of competition, Coleman I could see him as a rising star, part of the Top 10, although he did not seem capable of approaching the Top 5, considering monsters like Shawn Ray, Kevin Levrone, Nasser El Sonbaty or Flex Wheeler that were destined to succeed Dorian, at the time, Coleman was just a pair of huge arms and legs, without a good torso to unite everything, being easily defeated by people like Lee Priest, for example, it would be a great surprise to see the Coleman's enormous progress in terms of harmony and balance of his physique to the degree of being able to surpass that Top 5 and take over the title and the vacant throne left by Yates, was a great surprise, but a welcome news, considering that few took the sport with the discipline and seriousness that Coleman did, in addition to possibly becoming the strongest bodybuilder in history, with incredible stories about the prodigious amounts of weight that Coleman was able to lift.

Like Yates, Coleman's routines were brutal, and like Yates, Coleman had access to his own dungeon in the form of the primitive Metroflex Gym, a gym with few amenities, poor lighting and ventilation, and hundreds of dusty discs and rusty dumbbells, there Coleman would undergo a brutal exercise regimen, in order to convert a sport known for its low impact into a battle to death, which would cost him serious injuries, the basis of The King's argument, in a Coleman fight to overcome the damage on his back and hips, it is tragic to see an indestructible "monster" like Coleman struggling torturously to move supported on a pair of crutches, while undergoing a long series of surgical interventions to find a solution that would seem not to arrive, slave of pain suppressors and seeking to preserve some of the muscle mass developed over the years, while serving his successful businesses, world seminars and his family.

The King is a memorable and painful experience at the same time, the bittersweet portrait of one of the great champions of bodybuilding, an exemplary man who took his body to humanly unknown limits and paid a high price for it.