Ronnie looks incredible for a guy who's 44, but the bottom line is that his muscle quality is down due to his age, and it won't come back. As you age, your muscle density and maturity increase, but your actual muscle size goes down.
Bodybuilding is unique among sports in that athletes reach their peaks very late. Gymnasts reach their peak in their adolescence and then start slipping down. Swimmers reach it in their early twenties and then slip down. Sprinters reach it in their mid to late twenties and then go down(ages 25-29). Marathon runners reach it in their late twenties to early thirties and then go down. Bodybuilders, conversely, only reach their peaks in their late thirties to age 40.
Ronnie reached his peak of muscle size and density at the 2003 Olympia, when he was age 39 going on 40. The problem is that, at age 44, Ronnie is too old even by bodybuilding standards. This is how I see his Olympia performances:
1998 - His best package. He played to his strenghs that year, namely, his taper and muscle separations, striations and vascularity and it worked.
1999 - A repeat from 1998, except that he was slightly bigger but with worse abdominal separations and a slight gut distension.
2000 - I think that he looked better than most people give him credit for: he was huge with good conditioning, although the gut got worse.
2001 - Should have lost to Cutler. Jay defeated Ronnie at this contest far more than he did in 2006.
2002 - He was small, flat and holding water. His worst Olympia performance. If Cutler had entered this show in the form he was at the 2001 Olympia, he would have won.
2003 - Lots of people love this form of Ronnie, but I don't. He was humongous in terms of muscles, but holding even more water than in 2002, and he took gut distension to levels that were unheard of before.
2004 - Like 2003, except holding even more water and with an even worse gut.
2005 - His best performance in years. Much better than 2000/1/2/3/4. At 275 lbs, he had lots of the mass he had the previous year, only with much better conditioning and a much tighter midsection. Also, at age 41, his muscle density set him apart from his competitors.
2006 - I think he should have won. He was holding water during pre-judging and he lost thickness and width in his lats, but his overral muscularity was superior to Jay's, especially from the front. To be honest, I think that Coleman should hve won exclusively due to his MM
SUCKMYMUSCLE
