(Read on to See Ronnie's Personal Supplement Stack!)
Ronnie's Training:
The highlight of Ronnie's day is his training session. Everything else revolves around this.
Ronnie's training sessions take place Monday through Saturday at high noon. They last about two hours, and involve as many as three training partners. The camaraderie inside the gym where Ronnie trains is as strong as Ronnie himself. It plays an essential part in keeping him motivated, as well as his training partners. As one partner put it, "It's incredible...if you miss a day, then you'd better have a damn good excuse." While training, Ronnie and his partners move from one station to the next, each taking a spin on whatever machine or free-weight exercise they happen to be focusing on. They spot one another and offer motivation, often in the form of good-natured "taunting". Being that Ronnie hoists the heaviest loads, he performs his sets last. "I've been dreaming about lifting weight like this," he informs the 450 pounds of iron plates that he's about to hoist. He wraps his hands around the barbell and barks: "Yuh-uhp, yep-yep-yep, yuh-uhp!" And then he begins his grudge match with gravity. His nostrils flare. His muscles balloon. Their size and vascularity is sick. The whites of his eyes turn pink. Up and down the weights go, his muscles contracting rhythmically like pistons underneath. "Nine, 10, 11, 12....," he counts, almost breathlessly, before finally, blessedly, the release comes. Clang. Blood surges into his fatigued muscles, making them even more swole.
Ronnie's Diet: Boring, but it works
Besides the
weight-training, each day Ronnie completes
45-60 minutes of treadmill walking, his
cardiovascular exercise. Then, 12 weeks out from a major competition, he adds the other key elements to his regimen: a second round of
cardio exercise and a diet that is far more about fuel than it is about excitement. The purpose is to
shred his body fat down to the bare minimum - to produce that dry "onion skin" look that we all seek, but that's so hard to achieve. As he initiates his diet, Ronnie may weigh 330 pounds and carry less than 10% body fat. If everything goes as planned (and year after year, this has been the case), he'll drop 60 pounds over the 12 weeks and emerge shredded to granite-hard perfection. And he'll look like a monster. The basic daily menu plan -- consumed in six meals -- features a huge quantity of lean meats (up to 5 pounds) and liquids (around 2 gallons); a moderate amount of starchy carbohydrates, such as rice and potatoes; and
vitamin and mineral supplements to fill in the nutritional gaps. Ronnie's dietary counsel comes in the form of the
well-known bodybuilding nutritionist,
Chad Nicholls. "Only the most disciplined of athletes can endure the monotony of the diet", he says, referring to the highly repetitious nature of Ronnie's diet. Don't get me wrong,
Ronnie admits to having cravings -- doughnuts and cheesecake are two of his fantasy foods -- while he's on his diet. What makes Ronnie so different, however, is that he never cheats and barely ever complains. Below
Ronnie Coleman shares his
diet and supplement regime with Rob Thoburn [BSN's senior marketing executive and scientific advisor]: "Well Rob, actually my daily schedule is kinda boring, but I'll run it down for you. My food intake in chronicled in my
DVD, The Cost of Redemption. But here it goes:
10:30 a.m. is my first meal. I have: 3/4 cup of grits w/cheese 2 cups of egg whites I have my
BSN Nitrix (6 tablets) before this meal. After I eat my first meal I have 6
BSN Betalin capsules and 3 tablets
Axis-HT.
I wait about 2 hours and before I workout I have 3 scoops of
NO-Xplode. After I finish training I have 2 scoops of
Cell Mass and 6 more tablets of
Nitrix. I also have 2 cups of coffee with my breakfast. I also take my regular supplements like vitamin C, vitamin E, a multi-vitamin, mult-mineral, chromium, glucosamine, Co-Q10, liver tablets, Saw Palmetto, a prostate health supplement and some calcium.
My next meal is about 4 p.m. I'll have one chicken breast with red beans and rice, kernel corn and a couple of slices of cornbread and water. After this meal I will have another 6 capsules of
BSN Betalin and 3 tablets of
Axis-HT. This meal is at Black Eyed Pea, a restaurant.
My next meal is 7 p.m. I'll have two chicken breasts with a baked potato and a glass of water. Before this meal I'll have about another 6 tablets of BSN
Nitrix. This meal is at the Black-Eyed Pea Restaurant.
My next meal is about 10 p.m., I'll have a 9 oz filet mignon, 5 oz chicken breast, a baked potato and a side of french fries, I'll have this with a glass of pink lemonade. After this meal I'll have another 6 BSN Betalin capsules and 3 tablets of
Axis-HT. This meal is at Outback Steakhouse.
At about 12 midnight I'll have another 2 scoops of
Cell Mass and about 1:30 a.m. I'll have 4 scoops of
BSN Lean Dessert protein making a shake. Banana Cream is my favorite. This is the last meal of the day so I'll also take some more vitamin C, vitamin E, a multi-mineral, ZMA, DHEA and calcium.
My days are not that exciting; there are no business projects I'm currently working on. Normally my days are filled with answering e-mails and mailing photos and other things to fans who request them. I always watch my favorite TV show every morning, The Price Is Right. I have season tickets to the
Dallas Mavericks Basketball Team and I normally take my whole family to a
Dallas Cowboys game where we rent a suite for the day. Normally it's the Thanksgiving day game. I'm a single guy who lives alone so I tend to clean up around my house from time to time, I wash clothes, wash the dishes, sweep and mop the floors. A lot of my time is spent eating and driving to eat, not including the workout. So my day is still very full. Chris Ferguson [BSN's president and chief product formulator] got me on a customized
mass stack that includes Nitrix, NO-Xplode, Cell Mass, Betalin, Axis-HT and Lean Dessert Protein. This stack has worked the magic, that's for sure. The gains come on fast, and they stay with you. I have not taken these supplements separately as I know they work best together -"stacked". They have given me
strength, muscle mass, joint pain relief, stamina, and I have been completely energized the whole time during my workouts.
BSN owns the art and science of
supplement stacking, as Chris proved with the stack he put me on personally. Ronnie."
