Description: Long before Americans became slaves to high-priced fitness clubs and Spinning classes, pioneers like Jack LeLanne, Joe Gold and Vic Tanny built muscle the old-fashioned way. These no-nonsense fitness evangelists arose from the California physical culture boom of the forties, specifically Santa Monica's Muscle Beach. Proponents of "physical culture" were a fringe element until magazine images of Muscle Beach changed the country's ideas about physical fitness. The post-war years brought thousands of young, health-conscious people to the area, but Muscle Beach was closed in 1959 under allegations that it attracted the "wrong" element to Santa Monica. Many of the original Muscle Beachers are still alive as great testaments to their lifestyle, including Les and Pudgy Stockton -- an early female bodybuilder who had to create her own two-piece bathing suit out of old brassiere patterns.

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