On December 23, Jay Cutler recalled the year he finally defeated Ronnie Coleman in 2006. While discussing Craig Golias' injuries, Cutler revealed that Coleman's issues stemmed from something similar.

While Craig Golias was explaining the injury that originated in his back and later affected his triceps, Cutler jumped in with a story about Coleman. “Do you remember when Ronnie Coleman was losing his tricep and his lat?” asked Cutler.

“Back when he competed with me in '06, when I won? He started to get the shrinkage, and it was from his C7, I believe.” Culter said on episode 190 of the Cutler Cast. Golias asked whether it was nerve damage. However, Jay Cutler emphasized that it was nerve impingement rather than nerve damage.

Unfortunately, that was only the beginning of Coleman's trouble. As of 2025, he's undergone at least 13 surgeries on his spine, which left him nearly paralyzed due to all the screws, cages, and bolts put on his back.

“All the hardware kind of interferes with the nerves. I used to be able to bend over and do all these crazy stretches. I can’t do that anymore,” Ronnie Coleman admitted on The Joe Rogan Experience. The 8x Mr. Olympia also revealed the injury that started it all.

What Ronnie Coleman said on his first injury

During his conversation with Joe Rogan on the podcast, the 8x Mr. Olympia recounted the moment he first sustained a serious injury while performing a 600-lb leg press. Coleman revealed that he felt what he described as a ‘gunshot-like’ sound during the set but chose to ignore it.

"Every time after I finished working out, doing legs, I always had a real bad pain in my back," said Coleman. However, this time, something was different. "It would always go away in like an hour. This day, it didn't. I just went home, ate, put on my uniform, and was headed to work, and I was like, 'Wait a minute. My back is still hurting. Something’s wrong..'" added Coleman.

"Almost 12 hours later, I knew something was wrong. I went to the emergency room," he said. Coleman explained that the doctors initially couldn’t find anything wrong. However, after getting an MRI a couple of days later, he discovered it was a hernia.

However, what made it worse was becuse instead of laying off or getting surgery, Coleman continued lifitng heavy. When he finally got surgery, it was a decade too late.

Written by

Suryakant Das

Edited by

Sagnik Bagchi