Muscle Beach is the birthplace of the United States physical fitness boom, which started in 1934 with predominantly gymnastics activities on the south side of the Santa Monica Pier.

Muscle Beach dates back to the 1930s when the New Deal agency Works Progress Administration (WPA) installed exercise equipment immediately south of the Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica, California.

A platform on the beach with weight lifting equipment provided a workout area for such famous bodybuilders as Vic Tanny, Jack LaLanne, and Joe Gold.

Meanwhile, the adjacent City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department has continued the primary barbell, weightlifting and bodybuilding aspects, and events of the original Muscle Beach fame at the Venice weight pen.

[5] By the 1950s, Muscle Beach established worldwide fame and helped to popularize and bring legitimacy to physical culture with acrobatics and bodybuilding.