Sergio without a doubt had a truly fantastic structure , his balance , proportion and muscle distribution are arguably the best of all time , his muscle shape , tiny joints and waist as well complete the effect , his only real problem was conditioning , I've read stories that his diet sucked and he also used to work a 12 hour shift at the meat packing plant and then work out for 2 hours the guy was a machine , with the right diet and better presentation he would have been unstopable , I think 1972 was as good as it gets for him but I guess he came close to that at the 1978 WGGB Mr Olympus contest , but from a structure and balance standpoint Sergio blows Arnold out of the water but it takes more than the best genetics to be the best bodybuilder , I'm a huge fan of Sergios and always have been but Arnold was clearly the more complete bodybuilder but I never seen any footage from the 1972 Olympia so I wouldn't say Arnold beat him outright , the pictures don't give me enough to make a difinitive opinion , it some Arnold looks better and other Sergio does .
Let me preface this by saying that I, too, think that Arnold is the greatest overrall bodybuilder. I think Arnold looked truly fantastic at least three different times: at the 171 and 1974 Olympias as well as at the NABBA Mr.Universe. In fact, his form at the 1974 Olympia was, undoubtedly, the best 237 lbs that ever stepped onstage. Period.
Sergio strikes me as possesing the frame and long muscle bellies of Wheeler, with the size potetial of a Lee Haney. That's pretty much as good as it gets, methink. Sergio also struck as being very complete. But then, so was Arnold. To be honest with you, I don't think there's much of a difference in completenss between Arnold and Sergio; I don't think that's the reason why Arnold defeated him so many times. What muscle was Oliva missing
Comparing their respective pysiques, Oliva has a better frame as far as aestetics goes, but Arnold had him on bone size. This is what I perceive to be the key difference that made Arnold better than Oliva: raw muscularity with superior hardness&dryness. To be honest with you, I don't think Arnold was more complete than Oliva. From a skeltal perspective, Oliva was superior, and his muscle bellies were rounder and fuller. However, I think that Oliva had some muscle assymetries in his body, such as having very big biceps and triceps but delts that were smaller. Oliva was very complete, in the sense that no muscle was missing from his frame, but Arnold developed his more symmetrically and this is another advantage.
In conclusion, Oliva had the best natural structure and the best muscle structure as well, but Arnold was bigger, harder and develpoped his muscles more evenly, and this is why he defeated Oliva more often. When I compare the two, two things come to mind: that Arnold is significantly more muscular and had more symmetrically developed muscles. But in terms of musco-skeletal structure, Oliva reigned supreme. Is this what you were terying to say, man
Because, frankly, I think that Oliva was very complete in terms of his frame and lengh and shape of his muscle bellies.
SUCKMYMUSCLE
