MD Training Camp: Ronnie Coleman #3

Three Days a Week Won’t Cut It

What is your opinion of training three days per week versus five days per week for a natural athlete? Dave Goodin, a natural bodybuilder who is now retired, was known as “The Texas Shredder” and only trained three times a week. Then again, I know there are other naturals who train four or five times a week. I want to make the most of my physique and I know you have experience training naturally, so your advice would be greatly appreciated, Big Ron!

I don’t care if you’re natural or not, three days a week is not enough training to build the physique of a bodybuilder. That’s more like what some guy who works 70 hours a week in an office, who barely has time to ever get to the gym, would do to try and stay in some kind of shape. I mean, it’s better than nothing. But even when I was natural, I still trained the same way I did later on— six days on, one day off (Sunday). Four days a week is a minimum, and five is probably even better if you’re a young guy trying to grow. The muscles need to be worked hard and often to become much bigger and stronger, and three days a week won’t cut it.

Increase Protein to Make Gains

How much do you estimate your food intake increased from your early days as a pro competing at 220, to the later years when you were nearly 300 pounds onstage? Was it as much as we would expect, less or more?

My carbs didn’t go up a whole lot, but my protein sure did. Back in my early days as a pro, I was eating about 300-350 grams of protein a day. The more I learned about nutrition, the more I realized how important protein was for making gains. By about 2002-2005 when I was at my biggest, I was taking in about 600 grams of protein a day. Considering I was weighing 320-330 pounds in the off-season, that really wasn’t excessive. It was still less than two grams per pound of bodyweight.

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