Muscle Beach

Muscle Beach Venice, Los Angeles, August 2013 This is the version most people picture: a fenced weight pen on the Venice boardwalk under the big Muscle Beach sign, with a lifter between sets inside and visitors at the rail with cameras. Accounts differ on whether the City of Los Angeles put the pen here in 1951 or 1952; it officially took the Muscle Beach name in 1987. Dave Draper, Lou Ferrigno and Arnold Schwarzenegger all trained on this stretch of sand. Come to lift rather than to swing: this is the place for barbells and racks, while the rings and bars are up the coast in Santa Monica.