Fitness Capital of the World

See you in LA! Register now for IHRSA 2012!Call it whatever you like: the “acropolis of exercise,” the “fitness center of the universe,” or the “hub of health clubs.”

But, however you choose to think of it, the Los Angeles/Southern California area has meant more to the emergence, evolution, and development of the global health and fitness industry than any other spot on the face of the earth.

It’s therefore particularly fitting that, next month, March 14–17, more than 10,000 club operators, fitness professionals, industry suppliers, and investors from throughout the world will converge on Los Angeles for IHRSA’s 31st Annual International Convention and Trade Show.

While there, they’ll be able to both savor and reflect upon the industry’s remarkable history … and to play a part in fashioning its unimaginable future. “I grew up in Southern California, and, as a young man, I was inspired by my idol, Bill Pearl, a real bodybuilding legend,” recalls Augie Nieto, the current chairman of Octane Fitness, the equipment manufacturer based in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. When he was just 19, Nieto acquired the marketing rights to the Lifecycle exercise bike, and then cofounded the company that eventually became Life Fitness. “Bill ran a gym in Pasadena, and, when he took me under his wing, I was incredibly impressed by his humility.”

“I’ve always regarded L.A. in particular, and SoCal in general, as the ‘world capital’ of fitness,” says John McCarthy, IHRSA’s executive director emeritus. “During my years at IHRSA, nearly every fitness trend that affected the worldwide fitness industry originated either in L.A., itself, or in SoCal.”

“With its combination of sunshine, sandy beaches, and Hollywood star power, Los Angeles has long been the epicenter of fitness—a magnet for virtually all of the key people, products, and trends that have driven the worldwide exercise revolution,” observes Roy Wallack, the L.A. Times’s longtime fitness-gear columnist and the author of several books on fitness. “L.A. also boasts the highest per-capita density of health clubs in the country.”

Wallack notes, with interest, that much of what was to happen in the industry was born on the beach in nearby Santa Monica and Venice. Today, Venice Beach is still a showcase and showplace for physical activity of every sort, and includes the beach itself, Muscle Beach, Ocean Front Walk, Skate Dancing plaza, a bike trail, and handball, paddle tennis, and beach volleyball courts.

To enumerate every contribution that the people of the Greater Los Angeles area have made to the industry would require a multi-volume encyclopedia. Until someone takes on that daunting task, here, then, are 15 of the highlights of that history, as suggested by, among others, Nieto, McCarthy, Wallack, and Stephen Tharrett, the coauthor of Legends of Fitness: The Forces, Influencers, and Innovations That Helped Shape the Fitness Industry.

• Originally founded in 1880, The Los Angeles Athletic Club (LAAC) in downtown Los Angeles has operated out of the same building since 1912. “I believe it’s one of the oldest continuously operated athletic club in the U.S.,” says McCarthy. Since its inception as the first private club in Los Angeles, LAAC has subscribed to “a philosophy by which health of mind, body, and spirit flourish.” The club has been honored by USA Today as one of the “Top 10 Healthiest Hotels based on fitness facilities.”

• In 1939, the original Muscle Beach, just south of the Santa Monica Pier, attracted a young fitness buff named Jack LaLanne, who went on to become the first person to introduce ordinary Americans, particularly women, to exercise via television. LaLanne broadcast his shows from L.A. from 1951 to 1985. In the 1960s, he lent his name to a chain of clubs operated by Ray Wilson, which were rebranded Jack LaLanne European Health Spas, and he later licensed his name to the company that would become Bally Total Fitness. “Before Jack would let me use his image, he spent a week in my clubs,” Wilson recalled when LaLanne died last year. “He then gave me a list with four items that required we improve our service and fitness instruction to members … Even in his 90s, Jack never lost his dedication to fitness or his tremendous enthusiasm.” “Jack was one of my mentors,” recalls Nieto. “His ability to inspire the world to eat right, sleep more, and move more is his legacy!” 

• In 1939, brothers Vic and Armand Tanny opened their first bodybuilding clubs, Vic Tanny’s Gym, in Santa Monica and Long Beach. They touted their offering as “The Largest and Best Equipped Barbell Gym in the West.” After closing the gyms during World War II, the Tannys reemerged, in 1947, with a more modern version—probably the first of its kind, observes Tharrett. “It had mirrors, carpet, chrome equipment, sauna and swimming pools, and was used by men and women on alternate days. By 1960, it had grown into a chain of 84 facilities with annual revenues equivalent to $176 million in 2011 dollars.” 

• Rudy Smith, who owned and operated the Las Vegas Athletic Clubs (LVAC) in Las Vegas, was an early Vic Tanny employee and, later, after being hired by a friend, Don Wildman, ran the Holiday Spa Health Clubs, which became part of the Health & Tennis Corporation of America (now Bally).  

• Harold Zinkin, who founded Universal Gym, the fitness-equipment manufacturing company, in 1957, got his start in the L.A. area. “He won the first Mr. California bodybuilding title, training in Santa Monica and at Venice Beach,” McCarthy points out. 

• Ray Wilson created the first of his many clubs and club brands, the American Health Studios, in the Los Angeles area in the early 1950s. By the end of the ’70s, he’d also founded European Health Spas (which later licensed the Vic Tanny and Jack LaLanne names), and the Family Fitness Centers, which, at one point, claimed 72 sites. In 1994, the Family Fitness Centers chain was acquired by Mark Mastrov, who operated 24 Hour Nautilus, in partnership with McCown De Leeuw & Co., Inc., a private-equity firm; the chain was renamed 24 Hour Fitness. 

• In the late ’60s, Keene Dimmick, also from Los Angeles, created the Lifecycle. In 1972, Wilson acquired the rights to the Lifecycle and, working with Augie Nieto, introduced it to the world. By the late ’70s, the Lifecycle had become the best-selling piece of cardiovascular equipment in the industry; its success led to the creation of Life Fitness. “Only in SoCal could you find the inspiration required to launch the world’s largest equipment company,” says Nieto. 

• Joe Gold founded not one, but two of the world’s best-known fitness franchises—Gold’s Gym, in Venice Beach, in 1965; and, later, World Gym with Mike Uretz. “Arnold Schwarzenegger, a champion bodybuilder from Austria, moved to Venice Beach and worked out at Gold’s Gym, which was known as ‘The Mecca of Bodybuilding,’ “ notes Wallack. “He became a seven-time Mr. Olympia, and rode the 1977 documentary Pumping Iron to fame and fortune.” 

• “Brothers Willy and Angel Banos are also essential to the list of L.A. fitness luminaries,” suggests McCarthy. “They’re the owners of the Hollywood Gold’s Gym, which, after the iconic original Gold’s Gym in Venice, is probably the Gold’s facility that the greatest number of other Gold’s franchisees visit and emulate.” In all, the Banoses now operate nine Gold’s Gyms in three counties in the L.A. area. 

• Two fitness superstars of the Spandex era who’ve proven ageless—Richard Simmons and Jane Fonda—also hailed from the L.A. area. “Simmons opened his first center, called Slimmons, in Hollywood in 1974,” relates Tharrett. “He, of course, was the voice of fitness for the average person during the’70s and ’80s. Fonda created the aerobic craze among women in the ’80s with her books and videos; in 1982, she released Jane Fonda’s Workout, which sold more than 17 million copies.” 

• In 1979, Johnny Goldberg, a native of South Africa who’d worked in a gym in Johannesburg, arrived in Santa Monica. He worked as a personal trainer in a Venice gym, and, later, as an endurance bicycle racer, spent 10 years developing Spinning, a workout program for a stationary bike. Spinning became the next big fitness sensation. In ’89, “Johnny G” opened his first Spinning center in Santa Monica, moving it to Voight Fitness in West Hollywood in ’91; four years later, he opened Johnny G’s Spinning Headquarters in Culver City. Today, the business that he helped found, Mad Dogg Athletics, Inc., is one of the world’s largest equipment-based education companies, and the home of the Spinning, SPIN Fitness, Peak Pilates, Resist-A-Ball, and Bodyblade brands. 

• Established in Southern California in 1984, LA Fitness, whose corporate headquarters is located in Irvine, continues to expand impressively—most notably with the acquisition, last fall, of 171 of the facilities of Bally Total Fitness. LA Fitness now has more than 500 locations across the U.S. 

• Two other SoCal entrepreneurs, Michael Talla and Nanette Pattee Francini, have also had a distinct impact on the industry. In 1979, they launched The Sport Connection, which quickly attracted a host of celebrities, and, subsequently, inspired the 1985 film, Perfect, starring John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis. In 1987, they introduced two other brands—The Sports Club/LA and The Spectrum Clubs—both predicated on luxurious, large-scale, fullservice facilities. The Sports Club/LA grew into a chain with units in several major cities, and, in 1994, the company achieved a “first” by going public. (All of their clubs have since been acquired by other companies.) “We were also the first to introduce a number of other innovations, including private training, coed group exercise classes, continuing-education programs for our group exercise staff, low-impact classes, step classes, and yoga in a health club setting,” Francini recalls fondly. 

• Star Trac, an equipment manufacturer respected for its comprehensive line of bikes, treadmills, elliptical trainers, and weight training machines, christened its 100,000-square-foot world headquarters and manufacturing facility in Irvine in ’97. It boasts a 6,640-square-foot research and development laboratory; a state-of-the-art, 55,000-square-foot manufacturing area; and a showroom and employee fitness center. In 2006, the company added a 60,000-square-foot logistics center nearby, which oversees the warehousing of finished goods and parts, as well as the shipping, receiving, customer-service, and sales departments. 

• Not only were L.A. and SoCal the source of many trends, club companies, equipment manufacturers, and health and fitness innovators, they were also the birthplace of many training and certification organizations, which have done much to elevate the industry’s standards. The American Fitness Professionals and Associates (AFPA), founded ’94, is located in Long Beach; the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America (AFAA), created in ’83, is based in Sherman Oaks. And both the IDEA Health & Fitness Association, established in ’82, and the American Council on Exercise (ACE), founded in ’85, are located 90 miles south of L.A. in San Diego.

“Jack LaLanne, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Spinning, the personal trainer, step aerobics, Jane Fonda’s Workout, the Lifecycle, high-performance yoga—some were born in L.A., and some moved here, but all of them went ‘viral’ only after they’d come to Muscle Beach, to the Venice boardwalk, to L.A. … where fitness is a critical part of the culture of looking and feeling good,” concludes Wallack. “If you’ve got a new fitness-related product, or a workout, or a personal dream in mind, there’s just one place you have to come to make your mark—it’s L.A.!”

“The great pioneers created the fitness industry in L.A. in the past,” reflects Joe Moore, IHRSA’s president and CEO. “Now, many of the current crop of fitness icons, savvy thinkers, and game-changing innovators, from throughout the world, will be joining us next month at IHRSA’s 31st Annual International Convention and Trade Show. It promises to be one of the most inspiring, informative, exciting, and entertaining gatherings we’ve ever hosted—a truly historic event.”