"Excessive mass in certain areas will hurt you" - Samir Bannout on Big Ramy's performance at the 2023 Arnold Classic

Big Ramy has had a tough few months to say the least. The Egyptian bodybuilder first lost his Olympia title in November to Hadi Choopan. At the same show, he fell to the fifth spot despite being the former champion and a favorite to win the show.

Ramy went to the Arnold Classic with the hope of redeeming his spot as a front-runner in competing for the Olympia this year. However, he once again came up short and finished outside the top three.

Samir Bannout, the former Lebanese Mr. Olympia, revealed his thoughts on Big Ramy's performance at the 2023 Arnold Classic. While he admires the Egyptian's massive build, he believes Ramy has too much mass for his own good.

"If Ramy has smaller legs he’ll do better," Bannout said. "His legs are really massive ... Whatever he did is not so bad. I don’t consider that cheating anyway. I thought he repaired it. It is okay now. Excessive mass in certain areas will hurt you. It won’t help you."

While the Egyptian has visibly huge legs, Bannout pointed out that his quads are too big for his overall structure. This resulted in a symmetry problem.

"Whatever he did surgically to fix the problem he had something happened to his upper thighs. I don’t consider that cheating but that ended up really throwing the body off a little bit," he added.

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Samir Bannout on Big Ramy's arms and a possible bout with atrophy

Bannout added that the Egyptian bodybuilder's arms don't reflect the symmetry required to win high-level competitions. He mentioned that Big Ramy might be having a problem with muscle development in his right arm.

"There’s something about his right tricep, maybe he has a tear or something. He lost considerable amount of size in his arm but I was impressed with his quality. Something happened," Bannout added.

Despite not being the best on stage, Bannout is still a fan of Ramy's physique and believes that he brought a quality-packed package to the Arnold Classic. His lack in the arms department may even come down to coaching techniques.

"I don’t know what happened," he added. "There are some consequences to coaching, whatever they try to enhance that last-minute fullness. Ramy looked good but he’s hurting a bit in the arms development, the right arm."

Big Ramy looked closer to his Olympia-winning physique on stage at the 2023 Arnold Classic. He made several improvements and displayed better conditioning than he did a few months ago at the Olympia.

Despite his efforts, Ramy was apparently told by an official that he needed to bring a better package than his previous performances. Samir Bannout had some serious disagreements with this. He said:

"Ramy was complaining about something too that he was told by some official that he needed to surpass what he had done in the past. This is bullsh*t. He looked good. You have to judge him accordingly on how he looks that day. Quality wise he was ready but there’s some atrophy going on still."

It is common knowledge that Ramy has been going through stem cell replacement therapy to aid his muscle development. For many aging athletes, muscle development and tightness are reduced due to improper cell signaling.

Big Ramy has been trying to reverse this using a combination of stem cells and amino neuro-frequency (ANF).