Bruce Lee Workout, Diet and Training
Posted by Brad Campbell
28
Nov, 2009
A Review of Bruce Lee’s Workout, Diet and Training…by Brad Campbell
If you want to get a fighter’s body, who better then the late Bruce Lee to model your workouts, nutrition and training philosophies after?
This dude had a fairly small, compact frame that looked powerful because of his lean muscle mass and great body symmetry.
Here is Bruce Lee’s height and weight for reference: 5’7 ½” (1.71 m) tall and 140 lbs (63.6 kg).
This is a good example of how being ripped and well-proportioned can give the illusion of you being a lot bigger than you actually are (another great example —> Brad Pitt Workout Fight Club).
Not only did Bruce Lee look like a ripped badass, but he could do some pretty amazing things. For example, it was reported that Lee could do body weight push-ups on just two fingers – his index finger and thumb.
He could also do single arm dumbbell curls with 80 lbs for three sets of eight reps. That’s insane for a guy that weighs 140 lbs.
Some people think that Bruce Lee may have been one of the pound-for-pound strongest men ever…and he was definitely one of the quickest.
A major turning point in Bruce Lee’s training philosophy came after he beat down Wong Jack Man in a match that would allow Lee to continue teaching non-Chinese students martial arts (apparently the Chinese community wasn’t cool with Lee sharing his absolute coolness with other nationalities).
Despite opening up a can on this Mr. Man cat (who was supposed to be the ultimate badass) and finishing him in about 3 minutes, Lee was surprised at how tired he got during their fight. He realized that his workouts would need a lot more focus on physical conditioning.
One of the main reasons I decided to do this celebrity workout review on Bruce Lee is that his training style included all the elements of total fitness, including muscular strength, muscular endurance, explosiveness, cardiovascular conditioning and flexibility.
Most people only focus on one or two of these training elements and that’s why they never achieve the lean, ripped fighter’s body they were going for. Let’s look at some highlights of Bruce Lee’s workout routine.
Bruce Lee’s Workout:
–> Bruce Lee’s foundation was built on weight training. He typically performed 3-4 sets of 6-12 reps for most exercises. This heavy lifting favors more type II muscle fibers (or fast twitch muscle fibers), which leads to larger muscles and faster punches and kicks.
–> Lee varied his workouts often and focused on pushing his body to the absolute limits. By focusing on performance and constantly improving with each workout, a ripped body was just a byproduct of being in great shape.
–> Other than some isolation exercises to strengthen his biceps, triceps and forearms, most of Lee’s weight training focused on compound movements, like clean and presses, barbell squats, pullovers, bench presses, good mornings, pull-ups and dips. This is key for adding lean muscle and boosting metabolism to burn off body fat.
–> Bruce Lee would workout every day for 2 hours in the morning, exercising core muscles to help with his martial arts, stretching to increase flexibility and running to increase cardiovascular endurance.
–> Later in the day Lee would spend another hour weight training and cycling. Sometimes he subbed in jump roping or longer interval runs, where he’d switch up his speed every 3-5 minutes.
–> Lee also spent time conditioning the skin of his fists. He’d do up to 500 reps of punching his hands into buckets of rocks and gravel. Like I said – a total badass.
Bruce Lee’s workout routine is the definition of well-rounded. The main thing I want you to take away from this post is that it’s no accident the guy looked so ripped and athletic.
If you want to have a similar body that makes you look like a deadly street fighter, you’re going to have to work hard and NOT cut corners.
This means using heavy, compound weight lifting, doing intense intervals, stretching to improve your flexibility and at least one longer cardiovascular conditioning workout each week.
On top of that, you’ll want to put in extra work on lagging body parts. For example, if you want to have a killer peak on your biceps, you’ll need to add some isolation exercises to accomplish this…but it’ll have to be done in addition to the majority of your training. Because, the foundation of your workouts need to rely on the things that’ll give you the most bang for your buck.
I’m not saying you should start working out 3 hours a day, like Bruce Lee did. I’m just saying you need to focus on all the elements of total fitness. You can accomplish all of this in much less time by following my advanced fat loss workouts.
Bruce Lee’s workout routine only gave him a ripped fighter’s body because of his diet. He still would’ve been in great shape, but he wouldn’t have looked as lean and sculpted without the correct nutrition. Let’s take a look at Bruce Lee’s diet plan.
Bruce Lee’s Diet:
–> Lee spent a lot of time studying training and nutrition. He knew that a diet full of junk food would not produce the body or the performance he was after.
–> Bruce had a strong interest in healthy eating, especially when it came to high protein drinks and supplementation with vitamins and minerals.
–> Bruce Lee’s diet contained 1-2 protein drinks every day, along with homemade smoothies made from fruit and vegetable juices and lots of fresh green vegetables.
–> One of the best indicators of a healthy diet is your waist measurement. Bruce Lee’s waist was between 26 and 28 inches throughout most of his adult life. Compare that to the average male’s waist size today of about 38 inches…now that’s impressive.
–> Bruce Lee’s healthy eating habits shouldn’t surprise you. Building a lean, mean fighter’s body will require plenty of protein, fruits and veggies and you’ll have to lay off the junk food about 90% of the time.
And that, my friends, is how this iconic badass ‘got busy’ back in the day. Hopefully you found this celebrity review of Bruce Lee’s workout, diet and training principles to be helpful and inspiring.
It definitely lit a fire under my butt and made me want to train harder. Studying a guy like Bruce Lee is a good reminder of what’s possible. Don’t set your goals too low…
We should all be trying for a 28 inch waist and the ability to do two finger push-ups or curl an 80-lb dumbbell in one arm.
Your Coach,
Brad Campbell
Enter your name and email below to receive this KILLER free ab training video…
Posted in Celebrity Workouts | Celeb Diets, Motivation | Mindset | Goals by |
