Before selfie sticks and mood lighting, the gym was a place to put one hundred percent into any lift without caring about likes or subscribers. Fortunately, the cameras still rolled however, as Ronnie Coleman recently shared one of the most retro clips you’ll see for a while, repping 495 pounds with an incredible display on the front squat.
The year was 2000, and Coleman was shooting his legendary training DVD, The Unbelievable. In the DVD itself, we see the big man headed to the gym in his Dodge Viper, donning bright yellow tights and a “Shut Up and Squat” T-shirt — just to make his intentions abundantly clear. The gym in question was the Metroflex Gym in Arlington, TX, where Coleman crushed a herculean workout including hack squats and barbell weighted lunges, but this particular front squat clip keeps going viral, because it has everything that a vintage training video should have to make it a classic. Grunting? Check! Questionable wardrobe? Check? Proof that old-school bodybuilding is not for the faint of heart? Check!
Ronnie Coleman’s Viral 495-Pound Front Squat Still Shocks Lifters
As Coleman reached for the Barbell, we meet Metroflex gym owner, Brian Dobson, who is wearing a camouflage stringer and a pair of high cut denim shorts. “There’s no man who trains harder, anywhere,” said Dobson on the DVD itself. Time would prove that he wasn’t wrong.
After warming up, Coleman can be seen gripping the bar and getting to work. “I have the light weight on it now,” jokes The King, with five 45 pounds plates on either side of the bar. After some encouraging “Yeah!” motivation from Dobson, Coleman cranks out ten solid reps before re-racking the bar. And, since a standard Olympic barbell weighs 45 pounds, this places the total load at 495 pounds.
Despite how surreal the clip appears in 2026, front squats are still a staple for those who wish to build bigger quads, glutes, hips, and hamstrings. But when it comes to bodybuilder’s who lift heavy, Coleman was often in a league of his own. In the “Unbelievable” DVD, Coleman deadlifted 800 pounds for two reps, and later upped his front squat weight to 585 pounds for 4 reps.
“Next generation will say it’s AI,” wrote one amazed Instagram viewer. “Goosebumps,” wrote another. “Those denim shorts are legendary,” concluded the comments.
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