Wait, I just realised you are the OP.
Jesus… you almost ran to your car to cry after you heard a rumor from a kid in the gym. I think you really need some perspective.
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Are you going to stop all activity that could put you in a wheelchair? Because you probably have a lot of activities that you shouldn’t be doing.
Noted. If you find yourself in a wheelchair after a car accident when you turn 55, I assume you will look back on your entire life and say ‘all of that driving and riding in cars for 55 years? I’d trade every single car ride to get my legs back. THE PRICE HAS BEEN TOO DAMN HIGH’.
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That would be a very, very stupid assumption indeed, one worthy of the old adage.
So Ronnie did a thing for many years that clearly had substantial benefits, that he enjoyed. And at the end of the day, he says it was all worth it. He wouldn’t take it back.
Driving is a thing you’ve done for many years that clearly has substantial benefits, and you’ve enjoyed it. You say that it’s all worth it if you end up with a similar injury to Ronnie’s. You wouldn’t take it back.
Why are you judging him in one light and yourself in another?
I’d be willing to bet that bodybuilding has benefited Ronnie more than driving has benefited you. He’s richer and more famous than you are, right? And he obviously loves the shit out of lifting weights, probably more than you enjoy the process of driving a car. I’m just not understanding your position, and I would really like to be enlightened as to how you feel justified in judging what is worth it and what is not, in his case?
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Mate your analogy is atrocious but I’ll go with it. I drive a convertible. If I had ever flipped it over at high speed, with the hood down, I almost certainly wouldn’t be here entertaining your questions now. And if I DID flip it over, and say, rupture L2-L3 to the point I could no longer walk, yes I’d damn well regret the day I decided back in 1995 I would be a convertible driver. But there is a FAR smaller chance of me flipping a car over TWICE in my life, than me messing up my lower lumbars with RC’s crazy form.
There’s the 2nd difference. Regret. Just what is it that makes you so confident he DOESN’T regret it? All he had to do was perform B/O rows with good form, and he didn’t.
Now, having said all that Ronnie is a man of Christ. He (hopefully) accepts what happened with grace, at least I hope so. But he’s also a rational human, I don’t think a damn day goes by now when he wakes up, and doesn’t grit his teeth for being so stupid. He cannot WALK. All the money, the fame etc means nothing if you knew the joys of ambulatory locomotion and now cannot do that.
Does that fulfil your query?
He’s said it in multiple interviews, post back surgery. I’m confidently choosing to believe him. I’ve met the dude a few times, he lives near me, and I also train at a metroflex in DFW. And I’ve talked to plenty of people close to him.
Also, he can walk. I’ve seen him walking. Just not well. He was wheel chair bound for awhile though, and was saying the same thing when he didn’t know if he’d walk again.
My overall point is that none of us have any place to judge another person. Since you brought up Ronnie being a man of Christ, I’m pretty sure you’re well aware that we do not. I’m willing to take him at his word, and I’m not willing to judge what another man should and should not do with the body he was blessed with. I still don’t know how you believe you’re in a position to draw the line of where acceptable and unacceptable loss is.
A, you should have disclosed a LOT earlier that you know the man (and frankly, I don’t know you therefore I have no idea whether you’re spinning a load of bull or not), and B, on the presumption this isn’t all lies, THAT IS EXCELLENT NEWS.
I’ll be happy to come back to my own opinion of him, but right now, do you have any indication as to when (or hopefully not, whether) he’ll walk normally?
Has Coleman spoken or written much about his training?
He was pushing the limits, does he have some insights for normal guys? Besides the obvious intensity and fearlessness?
as far as I’m aware, that’s not a thing anyone can say. I guess you’d have to define normal… Like, if you’re asking ‘will he ever walk pain free, full mobility, full feeling, etc’ then I’m pretty sure the answer is never. But bodies are weird, everyone heals different. I suppose anything is possible. But that’s the sort of grey area I believe he’s in.
if you’re actually trying to figure out if I’m lying about where I train, who I train with, etc, that’s an easy thing to look up, I’m sure I’ve talked about it plenty in my log. I’ve said a zillion times where I live. I’m not suggesting you should have known this or looked me up, I’m just saying if you want to verify, all that info is out there. I’m also not suggesting I have a real relationship with the dude, just that I’ve met him a few times, and I’ve talked to people close to him. He’s never actually said, directly to me, ‘I regret nothing’. Take that for whatever it’s worth. I felt the interviews he’d done, and that infamous quote about wishing he’d squatted 800 for more reps, were sufficient to judge his mindset. Plus this video. I tend to think that his mentality is such that he is, quite literally, willing to die to be able to train the way he wants to train. He’s not willing to make unnecessary concessions, even now. He won’t use tighter, more controlled form because that’s not what gets him off. All the evidence available points to this being the only path he was ever willing to take.
Keep in mind that most replies here keep mentioning “wheelchair” in generic terms. A lumbar spinal cord injury is an amazing gift compared to a cervical spinal cord injury. There’s a huge difference in losing legs and possibly some abs as compared to losing everything below the neck. Also, stress injuries to the spinal column are not the same as traumatic injuries which damage the spinal cord. A person will have function as long as the spinal cord is not damaged (assuming other peripheral nerves are not pinched). Ronnie is most likely facing a lot of pain for the rest of his life but not necessarily. I’ve had two steel rods in my back for 32 years and there’s very little pain.
Most Olympic hopefuls would take a drug which would kill them, IF it facilitated an Olympic gold medal. Ronnie’s situation is less extreme.
It seems, reading that post, he is on the way to healing. I will be certain to mention him in prayer. If a full recovery is impossible, then I hope the eventual worst is that he suffers minor pain after 20 mile mountain hikes. But again, that is gladdening to read.
I had no reason to read your profile and still haven’t (had one). If he REALLY has no regrets - and by that, I mean he laughs when he wakes up in the morning, reflecting on his injuries, and not a bitter kind of laugh, well that would be dandy with me. But that is a HUGE “if”, and I’m not inclined to believe it’s actually the case.
Thus, I feel him to be, frankly, an idiot for having not followed good form. Am I “judging” him, in the sense I’ll be judged by Him for doing so? No, that’s my OPINION, dear fellow, and I am entitled to express it. I also very much doubt that all now deceased members of the Judiciary across numerous legal systems, as well as all those dead people who every carried out a staff evaluation, many if not most of whom accepted Christ before dying, are now all roasting loudly on a spit, somewhere. I can tell you Ronnie did a MASSIVE amount better in his Accounting studies, than I did. I’d also say he’s smarter than me overall, but intelligence, while a high predictor of good life choices, is no guarantor they will be made. Being willing to die, to train the way you want to train? Excuse me, if that isn’t the definition of Insanity, it ought to be.
I should add, by the way, I hold Ronnie in much lower regard for having toted a gun, whilst in the police force, than for what he did to his body. Yes, from what I’ve seen it takes a certain, thankfully rare mindset to stand ready to willingly place yourself in kill-or-be-killed situations for a vocation. While I’m aware that the police, and especially your armed forces are quite the sacred cows to (many of) you Americans, thankfully we in Europe aren’t as willing to blindly handwave the bad life choices thus made.
Please pass onto Ronnie ALL of our best wishes for a complete recovery, ie full function, pain-free. He did a lot of Our Thing - I am grateful for his example in Bodybuilding.
This is certainly an opinion to have.
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Haha you’re so remarkably diplomatic, these responses make me chuckle for whatever reason.
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Ronnie is one of those guys whom I don’t want to be like, but I’m still glad exist in the world. There is somebody out there doing the shit I’d never do in a million years. The world would be a lot more boring without them and I certainly wish him the best.
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So Ronnie posted a video of him walking with crutches the other day on his IG… The guy is Tenacious, ya gotta give him that.
S
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I hold you in much lower regard for all your shit opinions
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