From Arnold Schwarzenegger and Franco Columbu to Frank Zane, Los Angeles’ Muscle Beach became a magnet for bodybuilding hall-of-famers during its golden era in the 1970s. Yet, amidst a decline in third spaces and an overreliance on technology for human interaction, has its status as a cultural touchstone withstood the test of time? I went to Venice Beach to find out.
I’d been to the Venice Beach Boardwalk once, years ago. The pier was as I remembered: vibrant, hectic and more than a little grimy. On a hot Friday evening, the bustling hum was palpable.
Muscle Beach sits at the westmost end of the Boardwalk, almost touching the Santa Monica Pier. A giant barbell-looking sculpture looms above the outdoor weight pen, making the workout area hard to miss.
The gym itself is small, raised on a padded cement platform. Aside from a semi-covered weight room, most of its equipment is fully exposed. Horseshoe-shaped bleachers surround the gym near the adjacent Sand Pit, an area with rope climbing, acrobatic bars and punching bags.
A worker at the gym’s entrance led me to his fellow worker and bona fide Muscle Beach historian Terry Talbot, who shared a century of the beach’s history with me. Spurred by the fitness craze of the 1932 LA Olympics, a community of acrobats and fitness enthusiasts started exercising at a playground by the Santa Monica Pier. That playground grew into the iconic L-shaped platform and gymnastics equipment of the first Muscle Beach, until the city of Santa Monica shut it down after the 1958 arrest of five weightlifters following a statutory rape case.
“As two fitness epicenters worked in tandem, a common slogan became “Pick up weights at Gold’s, pick up dates at Muscle Beach,” according to Terry.”
In 1962, Muscle Beach was re-established across LA’s city lines in Venice. A few years later, Gold’s Gym, arguably the most famous gym in the world, was established less than two blocks from Muscle Beach, cementing the fitness culture of the decade. As two fitness epicenters worked in tandem, a common slogan became “Pick up weights at Gold’s, pick up dates at Muscle Beach,” according to Terry.
Today, the gym remains a nostalgic tourist destination, a beacon for fitness buffs and influencers to snap a photo of a legendary place of yesteryear. Visitors can stroll by a giant figure of a bodybuilder in the “Arnold Pose” along the boardwalk, put their head through a cutout of a bodybuilder silhouette or get a photo printed at “Hall of Frames,” a play on Muscle Beach’s Hall of Fame.
Tourism has always been part of Muscle Beach’s history, but I wasn’t sure how Muscle Beach fit into the trending culture of LA, where tone and thinness exist as a kind of social currency, even for masculine-presenting bodies.
I discovered that there is still a small, loyal group of bodybuilders in the community.
During our conversation, Talbot introduced me to 88-year-old Jerry, who has been working out at Muscle Beach since 1978. Jerry spread his towel on the bleachers for us to sit on, still slightly damp from his workout. I asked him if he felt that Muscle Beach was losing a sense of community in the modern day.
Jerry noted that some of the greats of bodybuilding still exercise at Muscle Beach, including “best in the world” Robby Robinson and, of course, himself. But he and Robinson are both in their 80s. When I asked him if bodybuilder culture remained as it had in its golden era, Jerry pointed over to the weight pen, where a muscular man was seated, hunched over a cellphone.
That man was 35-year-old Ike Catcher, “The King of Muscle Beach.” With a six-foot-nine stature and brawny frame, Catcher is internet famous, with nearly 140k followers on Instagram. He represents a younger generation of bodybuilders who use fitness as social media content.
Catcher told me that some athletes are paid to work out at Muscle Beach, in order to perpetuate its iconic image. If Catcher was one of those employees, he didn’t say.
At some point we began talking about steroid usage. The 1970s were the height of the anabolic steroid craze, Catcher said, but now “everyone” is abusing peptides — he maintained that he was “all natty,” or all natural. Upon hearing this, Jerry, who had seemed to be dozing, snapped to attention. Turning to me, he commanded Catcher to “show her your abs.” Catcher obliged, whisking his shirt up, at the same time taking out his phone camera to sneak a peek at his own physique.
Catcher’s phone became its own character in my exploration of Muscle Beach. I noticed that he, like many of the other attendees, recorded everything. Catcher produces tens, if not dozens, of story posts a day chronicling his routine. It was an interesting example of the dichotomy between the performative nature of bodybuilding, where bodies are designed to be seen, and the virtual world superimposed onto the physical one.
However, the physical world still has merit. Catcher explained that calisthenics and weight-lifting helped him overcome depression, and expressed wanting to use his status to be a role model for men experiencing similar struggles. For Catcher, Muscle Beach remains an important space for socialization and physical activity, even if its cultural relevancy in the canon of LA has faded to background noise.
On my way out, I looked back at the weight pen to see Ike’s legs suspended in mid-air, upside down, before they dropped back to the ground. A camera crew was filming a gaggle of actors sparring outside Muscle Beach’s cement facade, and the Boardwalk still thrummed with activity, even with the light gone.
In looking for LA, I had found not only a historical landmark, but an island of community amidst a sea of transient visitors.
Arianna Kaplan SC ’27 doesn’t understand Los Angeles. An East Coaster in her final year in Southern California, she is determined to figure out where, what, how, and why LA is what it is.
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