Original Muscle Beach

Muscle Beach is the birthplace of the United States physical fitness boom, which started in 1934 with predominantly gymnastics activities. This is the site of the original Muscle Beach but later moved to Venice Beach where weightlifters such as Arnold Schwarzenegger made it world famous. 

In the late 1930s, Abbye "Pudgy" Stockton, a California teen who had recently graduated from Santa Monica High School, was working as a telephone operator and feeling unhealthy due to her sedentary job causing weight gain. Her future husband Les, a UCLA acrobat, encouraged her to start working out with light dumbbells on a strip of sand by the Santa Monica Pier, now known as Muscle Beach. 

Together they became elite athletes, weightlifting champions, and gifted acrobats, performing at Muscle Beach for thousands of spectators. Their most famous feat was the "high press," where Les lifted Pudgy into the air while she lifted a 100-pound barbell. 

The beach attracted a group of "original hippies" known as the Nature Boys, who promoted healthy, natural eating and became the court jesters of the beach.

During the 60's Muscle Beach had been considered by the puritanical an “immoral place” and “a favorite haven of the sexual athletes as called by conservative locals. Santa Monica considered Muscle Beach a nuisance and tried to get rid of it by enforcing stringent rules and fees.

The weightlifters and bodybuilders eventually migrated down to Venice Beach, which was more tolerant and free-wheeling, and created a new Muscle Beach there. Today, Muscle Beach Venice continues to attract tourists and fitness enthusiasts alike.