Ron Love is a retired professional bodybuilder from Detroit, Michigan. He picked up weights while rehabilitating a gunshot wound he took as a police officer, and turned that into 75 contests, three professional wins and eight Mr. Olympia appearances between 1982 and 1993.
Ron Love (Big Ron)
Born: July 2, 1951
Birthplace: Detroit, Michigan, USA
Residence: Detroit, Michigan, USA
Nickname: Big Ron
Height: 6′ 0″ (183 cm)
Competition Weight: 225 to 255 lbs (103 kg)
Off Season Weight: 275 to 300 lbs (125 kg)
Ron Love Biography
Early Life
Ron Love was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1951. He was one of only a few black students attending Denby High School at that time and was still a force to be reckoned with as an athlete. Young Ron was an active kid and played sports like football, baseball, basketball, and track. Involvement in these activities ignited a passion for sports in him which only intensified in the following years.
Love first tasted success in football when he was selected for the University football team in his freshman year. He was a perfect blend of exceptional talent, hard work, and dedication.
Ron Love also found success in baseball and basketball as he had the necessary attributes like strength, speed, and agility. However, he did his best work in football and got a lot of recognition because of his performance in the sport.
The Detroit native got a football scholarship to attend college after graduating from high school. He played as a wide receiver and was an important asset to the team. The track also provided Ron Love an opportunity to shine as he participated in several sprint events and helped his team win many championships.
Early Career
Love joined the Detroit police force in 1972, and the job is what eventually put him in a weight room.
Transition to bodybuilding
Bodybuilding was not Ron Love’s preferred sport in the beginning. He turned towards the weight room to get stronger and improve his performance in the sports he was already playing. However, he realized that he had the talent and genetics to become a bodybuilder following an unfortunate incident.
In 1975 Love was shot in the leg in the line of duty. The rehabilitation put him under a barbell, and the barbell kept him there long after the leg had healed.
The Detroit native decided to pursue a career in bodybuilding seriously and started exploring and studying different training methods and systems devised by the greatest minds in history.
He realized that his body responded the best to high-intensity training and he could pack serious muscle efficiently in a relatively short amount of time. For the uninitiated, high-intensity training involves lifting heavy weights for relatively fewer reps.
Ron Love went on to adapt every aspect of the bodybuilding lifestyle once he started seeing results and soon became ready for competition. He started competing at local and regional shows and quickly became the talk of the town with a physique that was worthy of a bigger stage. Love won the overall at the 1982 NPC Michigan Championships and never looked back after that.
Professional bodybuilding career
Ron Love competed from 1982 to 1993, three seasons as an amateur and eight as a pro, and he was one of the most fierce competitors and popular bodybuilders of his time.
Ron Love’s first major victory came when he became the NPC Junior USA heavyweight and overall champion in 1985. He then went on to secure the IFBB Pro card with another win, taking the heavyweight class at the NPC National Championships in the same year.
Ron Love made his professional bodybuilding debut with a second-place finish at the 1986 IFBB Night of Champions. His first pro show victory came at the 1987 IFBB World Pro Championships, and two more followed: the 1989 Niagara Falls Pro Invitational and the 1991 San Jose Pro Invitational.
The multi-talented athlete made his Olympia debut in 1986 and walked away with a top-ten finish, placing eighth at the show. That also proved to be his best Olympia placing. He entered the contest eight times and finished ninth or lower in the other seven.
After his Mr. Olympia debut, Ron Love moved to Los Angeles but stayed only one month because the lifestyle was too superficial for his preferences. If you judged by only the handful of magazine feature articles written about him, you would tend to think that Love was not a major player in the muscle world. The record says otherwise. He entered 67 professional contests across eight seasons and finished in the top five in 17 of them.
Although he never won an Olympia or placed at the top of one, the Detroit native was always a formidable challenge to the leading contenders and gave the most successful competitors of his time a run for the money whenever they clashed with him on stage. His best year came late: in 1991, the year he turned 40, he took second at four Grand Prix and won the San Jose Pro Invitational.
1993 was his last season. Love has stayed in the gym ever since, training clients at the original Powerhouse Gym in Michigan.
Competition History
Ron Love Workout
Ron Love studied different training systems and concluded that high-intensity training suited him the best. At the peak of his activity level, Love trained six days a week. His training routine consisted of weight training and cardio. The combination helped him build muscle and burn fat.
He followed the old-school individual muscle split and had a training session dedicated to arms, chest, shoulders, back, legs, and abs. However, he made changes to the routine depending on the goal and sometimes clubbed two or more muscle groups in each session, e.g. chest and triceps, back and biceps, etc.
Although the veteran bodybuilder was a huge proponent of high-intensity training, he did not shy away from trying other training methods and employed high-volume work as and when needed. He often switched between steady-state cardio and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) to get the most out of the cardio sessions.
In conclusion, just like most old-school bodybuilders, Ron Love’s training philosophy had no room for weakness or a weak mindset. He still believes in pushing the body to increase its capacity and his training routine was designed to promote growth in terms of functional strength, flexibility, stamina, and endurance.
Ron Love Diet
Ron Love adapted every aspect of the bodybuilding lifestyle once he decided to pursue it as a career. Training alone can not guarantee the results as the body needs the necessary building blocks to grow, which are only provided by a proper diet and nutrition.
The Detroit native was always known for his discipline and work ethic. He implemented the same in his diet as well. Ron Love followed a high-protein diet that also contained healthy amounts of fats and carbohydrates.
He refrained from processed foods and got most of his calories from a clean diet that consisted of lean sources of protein like chicken breast, egg whites, and lean cuts of beef. He also ate ample amounts of fruits, nuts, and vegetables to get dietary fiber and micronutrients.
Although he focused on getting most of the nutrition through a clean diet, Ron Love was not averse to using supplements to meet the requirements. However, he used them to assist the diet and not to replace it altogether.
The Case For Ron Love
While highly accomplished athletes like former Mr. Olympia winners have a place in the pages of history, bodybuilders like Ron Love tend to get forgotten. Although he never won a major professional competition like Mr. Olympia, Ironman Pro, or the Arnold Classic, the veteran bodybuilder excelled at his craft and presented tough challenges to the most elite bodybuilders of his generation.
