What Was the Golden Era of Bodybuilding?

The Golden Era of bodybuilding, also called the golden age, usually means the 1960s and 1970s, and many fans stretch it into the early 1980s. Its home was the Los Angeles coast, especially Muscle Beach and Gold's Gym in Venice. In those years a small group of athletes, most of them training on the beaches of Venice and Santa Monica in Los Angeles, built the classic physique still copied today. They included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Frank Zane, Franco Columbu, Sergio Oliva and Dave Draper. The ideal was big but balanced: broad shoulders, a small waist and symmetry, shown off with expressive posing.

The term is used loosely, and historians don't agree on exact start and end dates. The core of the period is clear, though. It runs from the opening of Gold's Gym in Venice and the first Mr. Olympia in 1965, through the release of Pumping Iron in 1977, to the end of Schwarzenegger's competitive career in 1980.

What does the "Golden Era of bodybuilding" mean?

"Golden Era" (or "Golden Age") is a name fans, writers and coaches use for a period when three things came together:

• A recognizable look. Golden Era physiques were muscular but proportioned, with wide shoulders, a narrow waist, full chest and arms, and lines that read well from any angle.
• A specific place. Most of the era's stars lived or trained on the Los Angeles coast. They lifted at Joe Gold's gym in Venice and spent time on the beach nearby.
• A cultural breakthrough. Bodybuilding went from a fringe pastime covered in a handful of muscle magazines to something mainstream audiences knew about, largely through Schwarzenegger and the film Pumping Iron.

Dave Draper, one of the era's best-known bodybuilders, later described how quickly that change happened in the 1970s: "Musclebuilding became an industry overnight."

What were the golden age bodybuilding years?

There is no official start or end date. The most common answer is the 1960s through the 1970s, often extended into the early 1980s. Here are the milestones people usually point to.

The roots: Muscle Beach in the 1930s–1950s

The Golden Era grew out of the Original Muscle Beach in Santa Monica. Acrobats, gymnasts and weightlifters started gathering in the early 1930s at a city playground beside the Santa Monica Pier, and the site's heyday ran from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s. Jack LaLanne, Joe Gold, Vic Tanny and Abbye "Pudgy" Stockton were all regulars. Santa Monica closed the site in the late 1950s, and the lifters moved a couple of miles south to an outdoor weight pen in Venice, known as "The Pen." That pen is today's Muscle Beach Venice. For the full story, read our history of Muscle Beach.

1965: Gold's Gym opens and Mr. Olympia begins

Two events in 1965 are often treated as the start of the era proper:

1. August 1965: Joe Gold opened the first Gold's Gym in Venice, in a building he owned on Pacific Avenue. He built much of the equipment himself.
2. September 18, 1965: The IFBB held the first Mr. Olympia at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. Larry Scott won it, and he won again in 1966.

The late 1960s and 1970s: the peak

Sergio Oliva won Mr. Olympia from 1967 to 1969. Arnold Schwarzenegger began training at Gold's Gym in 1968, then won six straight Olympia titles from 1970 to 1975. Franco Columbu won in 1976, and Frank Zane won three in a row from 1977 to 1979. Venice was where the sport's best athletes trained, and Gold's became known as the "Mecca of Bodybuilding." Read how Joe Gold's gym became the Mecca.

The early 1980s: the closing chapter

Schwarzenegger came back to win his seventh Mr. Olympia in 1980, and Columbu won a second title in 1981. Chris Dickerson (1982) and Samir Bannout (1983) followed. Many fans end the Golden Era here, because Lee Haney began an eight-title run in 1984 and physiques kept getting bigger from then on.

What did a Golden Era physique look like?

The Golden Era look is the reason the term is still popular. Here are its main features:

• Proportion over sheer size. Judges and fans rewarded balance between upper and lower body, and between width and depth.
• A small, controlled waist. The "V-taper" from wide shoulders down to a narrow midsection is the trait people mention most.
• Posing as performance. Classic poses like the front double biceps, the side chest and Zane's vacuum pose were treated almost as an art form.
• Different ideals within the era. Schwarzenegger stood for a more massive, overpowering physique. Frank Zane stood for a leaner, more symmetrical and sharply defined one. That rivalry between mass and aesthetics is part of the era's story.

It's also important not to romanticize the period. According to standard histories of the sport, the use of anabolic steroids grew from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Golden Era bodybuilders were not a "natural" counterpoint to the modern era. Their physiques were simply judged by different standards.

Who were the key figures of the Golden Era?

There were dozens of important athletes, but these names come up most often:

• Arnold Schwarzenegger: seven-time Mr. Olympia (1970–1975, 1980), star of Pumping Iron and the era's most famous face.
• Franco Columbu: Mr. Olympia in 1976 and 1981, Schwarzenegger's training partner and close friend.
• Frank Zane: Mr. Olympia 1977–1979, the model for the aesthetic, symmetrical physique. He trained with Schwarzenegger at Gold's in Venice in the late 1960s.
• Sergio Oliva: Mr. Olympia 1967–1969, famous for his huge size and dramatic posing.
• Larry Scott: winner of the first two Mr. Olympia contests (1965 and 1966).
• Dave Draper: a California bodybuilder who joined Joe Gold's gym in 1966 or 1967 and became a public face of the sport in the 1960s.
• Lou Ferrigno: Schwarzenegger's young rival in Pumping Iron.
• Joe Gold: not a champion bodybuilder, but the gym owner whose Venice gyms (Gold's in 1965, later World Gym in 1976–77) gave the era a home.

For a longer list, see the Golden Era legends of Venice Beach.

Why was Venice, California, the center of the Golden Era?

Bodybuilding was popular in other places too. Big contests were often held in New York, London and elsewhere. But Venice and Santa Monica had a mix no other place could match.

A beach culture that was already decades old

By 1965, Southern California had about thirty years of outdoor training culture behind it, from the Original Muscle Beach. When Santa Monica closed its platform in the late 1950s, that community didn't disappear. It moved to Venice. A serious lifter arriving in Los Angeles found training partners, equipment and an audience in one place.

A gym built by and for bodybuilders

Joe Gold's gym on Pacific Avenue was a no-frills room full of heavy equipment. Draper remembered the floor as about 2,000 square feet of "benches and platforms, pulleys and racks, iron and bars," with no radio. Gold sold the gym around 1970 and it changed owners several times, but it kept its reputation. Today Gold's Gym Venice operates on Hampton Drive, a few blocks from the original Pacific Avenue site.

Weather, photographers and magazines

Training outdoors all year meant Venice physiques were photographed constantly. Photographers such as Artie Zeller shot the regulars on the sand in Venice and Santa Monica. Those pictures went around the world in muscle magazines. That is a big part of why the period looks so "golden" in hindsight.

Pumping Iron put it on screen

In 1975 filmmaker George Butler chose Gold's Gym Venice as the main location for Pumping Iron. The film, directed by Butler and Robert Fiore and released in January 1977, followed Schwarzenegger, Ferrigno, Columbu and others toward the 1975 Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia contests in Pretoria, South Africa. It made Gold's the most famous gym in the world. Read our guide to Pumping Iron.

How is the Golden Era different from modern bodybuilding?

The main difference is size versus proportion. Starting with Lee Haney in the mid-1980s, and even more with Dorian Yates (Mr. Olympia 1992–1997) and Ronnie Coleman (eight straight titles, 1998–2005), open bodybuilding rewarded much more muscle mass and density than Golden Era judges ever saw.

Other differences:

• Divisions. Golden Era bodybuilders competed in one open category, with height or weight classes. Today's federations also run separate divisions, such as Men's Physique (added in 2013) and Classic Physique (first won at the Olympia in 2016). Classic Physique is widely seen as a return to Golden Era proportions.
• Media. Golden Era fame came from magazines, contest photos and one documentary. Today's athletes build audiences on social media.
• Where people train. In the 1970s, many of the sport's top professionals trained in the same Venice gym. Today, elite bodybuilders train all over the world.

Can you still visit the places where the Golden Era happened?

Yes. The key places are still on the coast between Santa Monica and Venice, close enough to see in one day. You can stand outside the Gold's Gym Venice building and watch lifters at Muscle Beach Venice. You can walk the Venice Beach Boardwalk and visit the Original Muscle Beach in Santa Monica, where it all started in the 1930s.

Seeing them in order makes the story click. You can follow the move from Santa Monica's sand to the Venice weight pen, then a few blocks inland to the gym that became the Mecca. That route is the backbone of our guided tour, which a working Los Angeles strength coach leads as a storytelling tour, not a workout.

Explore the Golden Era in person

The Golden Era LA Tour is a guided tour of about six hours. Guests visit the landmarks of bodybuilding history and hear the stories behind them. Each Seat costs $199 and includes van transport between Stops, guided visits to Gold's Gym Venice (from outside; going inside the gym is not part of the tour), Muscle Beach Venice, the Venice Beach Boardwalk and the Original Muscle Beach, plus a healthy lunch and a t-shirt. Groups and families can book a Private Tour, and a gift card never expires, which makes it an easy present for a Golden Era fan.

LA Gym Tours is an independent operator and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Gold's Gym, World Gym, the Cities of Los Angeles or Santa Monica, or any person named in this article.