Author Topic: Muscle Beach History - by Stuntmovie  (Read 722935 times)

stuntmovie

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #50 on: June 06, 2013, 12:18:22 AM »
POWERLIFT 66. Wanna know some ODD LIFTING and POWERLIFTING historical stuff? I'd post it here but these bodybuilding fans and/or antagonists might rebel and call me a Blue Nosed Gopher whch the kids accuse me of when they don't get ice cream before dinner.



I'll be glad when summer's over and they get back to college.

Let me know and I'll tell you stuff you may have never heard of or ever care to know.

Powerlift66

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #51 on: June 06, 2013, 03:29:08 AM »
POWERLIFT 66. Wanna know some ODD LIFTING and POWERLIFTING historical stuff? I'd post it here but these bodybuilding fans and/or antagonists might rebel and call me a Blue Nosed Gopher whch the kids accuse me of when they don't get ice cream before dinner.



I'll be glad when summer's over and they get back to college.

Let me know and I'll tell you stuff you may have never heard of or ever care to know.

Stunt, that would be great. Anything to add to in this thread is appreciated. (BB and PL)..

funk51

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #52 on: June 06, 2013, 08:11:50 AM »
This is a great shot of what appears to be the old Santa Monica Muscle Beach weight pit.

I'm not sure if it was called a 'pit' back then but this photo will give you a damn good idea of where on the beach it was located if you are somewhat familiar with that part of Santa Monica.

The pointed roof in the background appears to be the Merry GO Round building and now there is a Life Guard Headquarters complex that stand two floors tall between the PIT and the Pier on which the Merry GO Round sits.

One interesting bit of information for our GetBig historians is that some of the old Muscle Beach photos will show some old beachfront homes in the background.

They are not there any longer but we had the opportunity to buy one of these old beach homes in the early 70's for something like $34,000 but failed to do so. E

Today ven that vacant parcel of land would be worth millions.

Next up or soon to follow .... How we met Steve Reeves and a bit of history about that subject.

Steve has or did have a relative on this Board. Maybe she'll pitch in and help me with the dates.
;D
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funk51

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #53 on: June 06, 2013, 08:12:54 AM »
 ;)
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funk51

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #54 on: June 06, 2013, 08:16:27 AM »
 ;)
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funk51

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #55 on: June 06, 2013, 08:17:31 AM »
 ;)
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funk51

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #56 on: June 06, 2013, 08:19:33 AM »
 ;)
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funk51

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #57 on: June 06, 2013, 08:30:24 AM »
 ;)
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funk51

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #58 on: June 06, 2013, 08:32:09 AM »
bumping for next installment.
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jpm101

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #59 on: June 06, 2013, 08:48:27 AM »
Reeves looks awesome. Just a natural.
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njflex

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #60 on: June 06, 2013, 09:05:36 AM »
bumping for next installment.
GREAT PIC MIDDLE GUY IS RIPPED ,WEIRD POSE,GREAT SHAPE ON ALL 3,,GOOD STUFF BRO'S..

jpm101

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #61 on: June 06, 2013, 09:32:45 AM »
Stuntmovie

Wish I could go back to those times, but I was born in '72. My uncles, and some of their friends, witnessed a lot of that stuff. Listened to the old stories of a lot of veteran weight men around "The Beach", friends of my uncles. I went to college (lucky football scholarship) in the greater L.A. area, my uncles lived in Hollywood, and I spent some time with them (their the one's who got me doing the old 20 rep breathing squat workouts...very worth the experience..great for off season football). Also was loaned a stack of the original IronMan magazines (very small size back than) from one old timer. Greatest magazine I ever read, about training, as a young man. Got a lot of solid information from them. The guy who loaned them out died and his wife threw all the IronMan mag's away. Almost brought me to tears when I found out about that. I would have gladly bought all of them.

When ever driving around Hollywood or L.A., either uncle would point where old gyms had been, and some stories to follow about them and the members. They said that  Richard Tyler had been working the desk at Marcy's, on E. Sunset. Remember him? Later became a chiropractor and wrote for some muscle mag's.  I trained at a Okinawa Te karate dojo a few blocks away, on Sunset, for awhile. Marcy's had been closed, if I remember right.

Heard that Bill Pearl was hard pressed to move from Manchester Blvd, after the riots, to Pasadena. But probably for the best  (not BB'ing related, but I met the great Ed Parker, at his dojo in Pasadena. Really a nice and friendly man. The good really die young, I guess).  

Thanks again for all the history of what was. And please keep them coming.
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Joe Roark

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #62 on: June 06, 2013, 09:43:42 AM »
Stunt, from my point of view you cannot cause me boredom with these stories. If others find the memories boring they have every right to not check back to this thread, but I have a hunch there will be many who care. The more details, the better.

Remember, please, to PM me in regard to my inquiry.

stuntmovie

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #63 on: June 06, 2013, 10:50:18 AM »
Thanks, you all,  for the positive remarks.

Shit! .....Even the negative ones are appreciated so if my memory banks fuck up a bit, don't hesitate to correct me. Call me what you want but say it politely


RIght now my curser is having difficulties and either locks up or jumps around so I may be computerless for a few days if I have to take it in for repairs.

FUNK and all.... Thanks for the Reeves shots. Some of which I've never seen. They are appreciated. I think I can identify some of the locations where they were taken. One being taken in Hawaii and another taken at Santa Monica Beach beneath the wall where Sea Castle apartments presently stand.

Most of the avid beach-goers would sit by that wall because it served as a bit of protection fron the sea breeze that would periodically kick up the sand. And it was something to lean against. Whoever took that picture was most likely standing beside that wall. (Getting too damn detailed here.)

The shot with Reeves and the kids appears to have been taken at Zuver's Gym which was located across the Bay on the Oakland side.
Some good stories about that someday.

JPM .... I hope to be posting lots of lifting stuff one of these days because for a pretty long part of my life I was deeply involved with the lifting of hevy things and those who excelled in stuff like that.

I had good friends who would simply lift my old VW out of a chain locked barrier while it was impounded for some dumb violation of some sorts. It took four of them to do it but my VW was back on the road within 30 seconds.

Plus you mentioned IronMan magazine ..... I didn't know them well but I had the opportunity to know Perry and Mabel Raider for a few years when they owned and published the original IronMan pub location.

They were great people. Very country.

Are you familiar with the names ... Mike Lambert / Bill Starr / Bill Peanuts West / Gus Rethwisch (spelling? Sorry, Gus!) / Pat Casey /  Casmier / Fitton / etc.

All great in the weight game and always unforgettable for various an noteworthy reasons .

I hope to cover a lot of this later on ... but some of the stuff I want to pass on to interested GetBiggers ... I'll have to ask permission first.

But as I've said earlier ... I'll have to leave the scuttlebutt in Beef's arena because I only want to write about stuff I've personally seen or experienced without resorting to questionable rumors or inuendoes. (I gottta look that last word up some day.)





BIG AL MCKECHNIE

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #64 on: June 06, 2013, 02:26:08 PM »
PIP, I'll be responding to your "were they natty" question shortly and I think I'll make a few decent enemies in the process.

Remind me if I fuck up and forget.
 

Great thread.   I hope you are not going to be the first person to expose the fact that guys were on Testosterone Propionate in the 1940's.  :D

old-school-lifter

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #65 on: June 06, 2013, 03:21:33 PM »
;D

look @ those lifters in the check shirts

the original barbarians

i think the barb bro's copied them!

stuntmovie

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #66 on: June 06, 2013, 07:05:06 PM »
PIP and BIG  AL …. Here’s my best attempt to give you the most honest answer I possibly can regarding the use of roids in the 50’s and  weather or not Reeves used them at all back then.

I can’t give you a definite YES or NO answer and anyone who says otherwise is definitely full of shit (respectfully stated)  as far as I am concerned.

You have to understand that times were totally different back then and somewhat Victorian when compared to the way things are today … and drugs in any shape or form were considered to be taboo.

I find this somewhat difficult to explain to the younger generation because drug use is so common in most everyone’s life today but back then it was a completely different situation.

But … I have read and have been told about the use of strength enhancing drug usage among the Olympic lifters during the 50’s which is no big secret today.

But it wasi’nt until the 60’s that the used of roids among the bodybuilders gained popularity.

Debatable? Yes! …. But I can only rely on contrary opinions from individuals who were actually present and somehow involved within the time in question.

And from my point of view, Steve never looked like he used roids. He was gifted from birth and when he was real young one of the local Oakland newspapers even wrote an article about the fact  that he never had a cold nor a cavity.

And much later we even had a conversation about roid usage throughout the world of sports (not just bodybuilding) and he was very sad and outspoken about their present use.

Add to the above the fact that I was pretty damn knowledgeable about physical conditioning and muscle growth in the 50’s and would have known if roids were available for physical enhancement purposes.

I will agree that anything is possible, but I’d be darn surprised if Reeves or Eifferman or any other bodybuilder of that period used them.

And the fact is that roids were not illegal back then ,… so no one had any reason to  hide the fact they were using them.

Hell! Years later when they were still legal  the guys would load up and shoot up in the locker room and throw the needles in an attempt to stick them in a dart board.

There were no secrets about using roids, but there were secrets about how much to use and which were the best to use in combination with the others

Those were individual secrets that were kept somewhat private in an effort to improve faster and better that those who they’d be competing against.
 
Unlike today, there were no secrets about using roids back then.

I’m not sure I explained this correctly but I am pretty damn sure that Reeves was a ‘natty’ back then ...  and so were many other BB competitors in his day.

It wasn’t until the 60’s that there was a big change.

Anyone wanna fight!

Roger Bacon

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #67 on: June 06, 2013, 09:41:22 PM »



That's cool, thank you!!

Very interesting read!

I've seen cool old photos from that era, and even back to like 1900 with some really jacked fellows that would almost have to be natural. 

jpm101

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #68 on: June 07, 2013, 08:42:24 AM »
I'm not defending anyone, past or present, just some thoughts.

Can understand why today's BB'er/lifter thinks that everyone, who is superior in muscle size and strength, takes any form of steroids  (actually there are more advanced forms of enhancements...simple steroids are almost becoming old school) but that's not always true. There are men (and women) who are natural powerful and larger in muscle size. They pretty much add even more strength and muscle size, not matter what type of lifting program their on, fairly easy. That is their genetic codex. Probably Reeves could wave around a couple of milk cartons and get bigger delts.

Would doubt very much if Reeves, or other BB'ers  around that era, even came in contact with steroids. Steroids were in a pretty mild form back than and mainly taken in oral form (less affective). Unless they got shots, like the York Olympic team did in the early 60's. That would have been very expensive, to say the least.

But than again, I wasn't even born during that era, but have heard a lot of folklore about "the good old BB'ing days" from people who were there. Might be wrong, but would doubt that the genetic gifted, back in the day, ever used.  Most of the BB'ers back than seem to have cleaner and classic lines...just didn't have that drugiee look.

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funk51

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #69 on: June 07, 2013, 09:51:11 AM »
just my take on this , i always thought reeves and guys of his era were clean, from my own personal experience i know that the neighboring town used to juice their high school football players we're talking 1966-1969. the drug was d-bol and they used to have it in a basket in the middle of the locker room for anyone to partake of it. and most did result they hardly ever lost......
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njflex

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #70 on: June 07, 2013, 10:36:49 AM »
ITS THE AGE OLD QUESTION DO THEY OR DON'T THEY,,,one never knows.drugs do many things muscle mass yes obvious,some guys its better conditioning/muscularity/being able to diet and retain mass...anybody 60's on up had these more readily available and more knowledge on how to use them.especially California subculture.its still fun seeing these great pics and stories.how musch one weighs or how big does not mean anything with drugs,smallest ripped guys use or will use more than the biggest guy and from 70's era it blossomed...

funk51

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #71 on: June 07, 2013, 11:13:44 AM »
bumped for next installment. ;D
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funk51

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #72 on: June 07, 2013, 11:14:40 AM »
 :)
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funk51

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #73 on: June 07, 2013, 11:35:26 AM »
some dick tyler pics.
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funk51

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Re: Muscle Beach History - as seen by myself
« Reply #74 on: June 07, 2013, 11:36:49 AM »
 :) more richard tyler.
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