 At seventeen years of age and 143 pounds, he decided that he wanted a body like Arnold Schwarzenegger's after seeing the film "Conan the Barbarian", but at the time commercial gyms in his hometown of Chemnitz, East Germany, were non existent.Instead of abandoning his interest in bodybuilding, he created his own weight set.Following the demise of communism, entrepreneurial activities in the East of Germany spawned and with that the first gym opened in Ronny's hometown.