Muscle Beach, Santa Monica, CA

Laree here...

What began quite by accident in the mid-1930s gained momentum through the '40s and into the late-'50s. Today, nearly 50 years after the closing of the original Muscle Beach location, tourists arrive at the Venice beach area expecting to see -- what? Well, they don't really know... they just know they've always wanted to visit Muscle Beach.

Older folks remember whispers of the real thing, where a young Jack LaLanne was taught how hand balancing, and along with Harold Zinkin, Les and Abbye "Pudgy" Stockton, Glenn Sundby, Moe Most, Russ Saunders and other fitness pioneers, experimented their way through stunts, tossing the women through the air, and building pyramids of bodies two stories high.

Steve Reeves, George Eifferman, Zabo Koszewski, Armand Tanny and pals built up the weightlifting contingent, and eventually when the city shut 'em down in 1959, Joe Gold led the lifters a few blocks inland to his training center, what later became Gold's Gym, the nucleus of the Venice Beach Mecca of Bodybuilding.

Today those Venice visitors will enjoy their time at the beach, with it's glorious weather and eccentric people, with the weightlifting Pen, a training area inside a 4-foot chain-link fence where the bold can train on a cheap day pass, in shorts and barefoot, with a zillion passersby checking out the action.

On holiday weekends in the summer, if the timing's just right, they'll catch a free Muscle Beach bodybuilding competition at the re-built city park a few miles south of the original site. Look west, and between them and the big blue Pacific they'll watch as fitness buffs work the rings and high bars embedded near the cement bleachers.

It's not the same, not by a long shot, but it's still a great way to spend an afternoon. More than that, a tiny bit of the Muscle Beach attitude -- anything is possible -- will seep under their skin and into the marrow of their bones. Optimism that anything is possible, that was the motto of the friends of Muscle Beach.

Photo by Ian Sitren, Second Focus

Dave remembers a bit about Muscle Beach, too. But not the original beach site, which closed a few years before he hit the Santa Monica scene fresh from New Jersey. Here are a few links to get you started with Dave's memories:

Muscle Beach Gym, The Dungeon, 1963

Dave's early bodybuilding history

First trip to Muscle Beach

Fascinated by the early Muscle Beach days? There's *no* better source of information than Harold Zinkin's remembrances, and no better collection of photographs from that glorious time. His book, Remembering Muscle Beach, is sometimes hard to get; when the publisher is out of stock or decides to discontinue printing it, indulge yourself with a used copy from Amazon.com, or track one down at ebay. It's a treasure you'll share with all your relatives and neighbors, no kidding!

Here Harold Zinkin, the author of Remembering Muscle Beach,
has a conversation about Joe Gold with NPR's All Things Considered.

We talk about Muscle Beach and the Golden Era often in the forum,
and would love to have you join us with your questions or memories.