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Most people have their own idols whom they strive to imitate in life. This applies to all areas of human activity, including sports. Bruce Lee continues to be one of these for many. For most of us this person is outstanding athlete and a martial artist. Not many people know that he was also a writer and teacher. However, today we will talk about how Bruce Lee trained.
Undoubtedly, it was Bruce Lee's training that became the foundation on which his success was built. He became an unsurpassed martial artist only because he worked on his body every day. This outstanding person still has quite a lot of fans today, but they cannot achieve the same heights. This is primarily due to the fact that most of them rely on physical training. At the same time, they completely forget that Bruce Lee actively worked on the mental preparation of his body, and also constantly honed the technique of performing all movements.
Technique is of fundamental importance in all sports. Looking at the photographs of the master, you can immediately notice that Bruce Lee’s training was not primarily aimed at the physical component of the body. He did not have a mountain of muscles, but tried to make them stronger and more resilient. You can achieve great heights only if you devote yourself wholeheartedly to your studies.
The basis of Bruce Lee's training was isometric exercises, working on the abdominal muscles and jogging. Of course, Bruce Lee also worked with weights, using a high-repetition regime, to increase muscle endurance. Bruce Lee himself has repeatedly stated that the basis of a good fighter is a high-quality muscular corset. This is due to the possibility of carrying out a long battle, in which endurance is of utmost importance. That is why he spent a lot of time working on his abs.
How were Bruce Lee's training sessions structured?
We have already said that Bruce Lee paid a lot of attention to isometric training. We will begin our conversation with them about the master’s training program.
Isometric exercises
This is enough simple exercises, which at the right approach their use also turns out to be very effective. The main advantage of isometric training is that you can do it anywhere and you do not need any sports equipment for this.
Of course, your workouts will be even more effective if you use weights. For example, you can take a barbell that weighs more than lice physical abilities, and try to lift it off the ground. When your muscles are at maximum tension, you should remain in this position for 6-12 seconds. Despite its apparent simplicity, using isometric exercises you can effectively develop muscles.
Strength training
The basis of Bruce Lee's strength training was working with free weights. Here are the movements that the master used:
- Bench presses.
- Work on the abdominal muscles.
- Squats.
- Rotations with a barbell placed on the shoulders.
- Biceps curls.
Bruce Lee's training program
After Bruce Lee's death, a lot of information remained about his training program. We have already said that he paid special attention to cardio exercises and especially running. After a long run, there was a warm-up and sparring. To avoid unnecessary injuries, appropriate protective equipment was used during training battles.
Bruce Lee began his training by practicing punches on a wooden dummy and bags filled with sand. Only after this did sparring with a real opponent begin. It should be noted that the master constantly alternated his classes and this is one of the reasons for his success. To achieve a positive result, you should not focus only on strength training or sparring. It is also necessary to develop endurance, flexibility, agility, etc.
It is very important to never stop there and always keep moving forward. Discipline is very important here. This applies not only to strict adherence to the training schedule, but also to those moments when, in the absence of the necessary sports equipment it has to be replaced with improvised means. For example, Bruce Lee could perform isometric exercises in such situations.
If we talk about strength training, then we can cite rough plan Bruce Lee's workouts with barbells:
- Standing presses - 2 sets of 8 repetitions each.
- Biceps presses - 2 sets of 8 repetitions each.
- Squats - 2 sets of 12 repetitions each.
- Forward bends - 2 sets of 8 repetitions each.
- Bench presses - 2 sets of 6 repetitions each.
Bruce Lee's training methods
Guidance given by Lee to those who want to follow the doctrines Jeet Kune Do, with all the necessary clarity and yet somewhat vaguely boils down to the following: “You must come to terms with the fact,” he wrote, “that there can be no help except self-help. For the same reason I cannot tell you how to achieve freedom, because freedom exists within you. I cannot tell you how to achieve self-knowledge. I can tell you what not to do, but I can't tell you what to do because that would limit how you approach the problem. Formulas destroy freedom, recipes constrict creativity and affirm mediocrity.”
Always remember that freedom from self-knowledge cannot be achieved by rigidly following formulas. We cannot suddenly “become” free. We are simply free.
“Follow the principle,” Bruce Lee told Dan Inosanto, “dissolve the principle, but do not be attached to it, this is JKD!”
Of all his many advantages, Bruce Lee valued his body the most. He did what many considered eccentric and even fantastic to keep his form in perfect condition. His gym was a temple of physical training, equipped with all sorts of devices, decorated with mirrors so that the athlete could better observe his exercises and movements.
His Bel Air home was, naturally, filled with all sorts of equipment that Bruce's friend and student Herb Jackson had designed. Stirling Silliphant remembers how frightened he was by yet another device that looked more like a medieval rack than a sports machine. Once he even tried to make a joke, saying: “Now I understand why there is so much talk about the variety and cruelty of Chinese torture.” Another thing that left a lasting impression on Sterling was the giant bag that Bruce hung in his garage. The bag was 1.30 m in diameter and 1.65 m in height and required at least two people just to grasp it. The bag was soft, so even if you kicked it with all the force you could muster, it would only wobble slightly. “It was like hitting a swamp,” says Sterling, “I was completely helpless in fighting this bag, while Bruce was able to send it into the air with one blow.” Sterling recalls Bruce often saying that the best place to kick was on a large palm tree. “When you get to the point where you stop shaking from your own blow, and only the tree shakes, then you will begin to understand the blow.”
He never missed a day without training. “For me, the best exercise is running,” he once told a reporter, emphasizing the fact that anyone who is not ready for physical activity, “there is absolutely nothing to do in hard sparring.” He argued that running is so important that you should continue to run throughout your life. What time of day you run is not important, what matters is how long you run. At the beginning, you jog lightly, then increase the distance and pace, and at the end of the run, include sprinting to develop speed endurance. He himself ran daily at least 6 times a week for 15 to 45 minutes, covering 2 to 6 miles, plus the 10 to 20 miles he clocked every other day on his stationary bike. In addition to running, he focused a lot on developing abdominal strength, he also did repeated squats, leg swings and slow leg raises.
Bruce was a firm believer in constantly conditioning his fists and feet so that they became effective weapon- The joints of his fists were covered with large calluses. Later, he stopped enlarging them, feeling that they were just an ornament, which could also have a negative effect on the function of the joints. He had a bean bag mounted on the wall, on which he practiced punches. His unique device was a mannequin made of teak, which he brought from Hong Kong. In accordance with his methods, he added the necessary devices for it. The mannequin was about 1.8 m tall and 0.3 m wide. It stood on a platform 2.5x2.5 m, attached to it by means of a metal spring, which naturally led to the fact that the response movement of the dummy to Bruce’s blow was almost unpredictable. The mannequin had two arms just below the neck and one arm at stomach level, their length was more than 0.6 m. He also had a metal leg extended forward and bent at the knee. The mannequin's hands helped Bruce practice the technique of "pak sao" - "trap hands", as well as for "chi sao" - "sticking hands". The need for an extended leg was caused by the fact that with its help Bruce learned to automatically place his leg in such a way that it limited the movement of his opponent’s leg, preventing him from striking with it.
He also practiced blows to the shin and knee on this leg. Bruce had several different bags in his arsenal for practicing punches. He used the heavy bag to deliver heavy blows, which he delivered in a series in order to keep his opponent in a poorly balanced position, preventing him from concentrating for a counterattack. He also had a bag with a soft bottom for blows aimed precisely in a straight line. “If you hit a path that is even slightly different from the straight line, the bag will not come back to you,” he explained. This bag was very useful for setting up kicks. Supported by suspensions operating on the principle of rubber, the bag returned after impact with monstrous speed, thus Bruce or his student had to be extremely careful.
He also often used sheets of plain paper in his training. He hung the sheet at the height he needed on a heavy rope or chain. The purpose of this training was to increase speed while simultaneously achieving precision work (coordination of the whole body to achieve maximum power. A simple piece of paper helped him practice the whip-like movement in punches, as well as in yoko kicks and kicks. The sheet also helped him choose correct distance, but the main goal was to achieve maximum accuracy as well as explosive power. His blows, which he delivered against a special padded shield, looked very impressive. One of his friends or students held this shield and moved around. This allowed him to learn how to deliver penetrating strikes to a moving target. It was an amazing sight. When Bruce himself held this shield, and one of his students struck a blow, but I never saw the blow shake Bruce. But as soon as Bruce’s turn came, the student, as a rule, ended his flight in another corner of the room in a state of semi-shock.
Lee increased the speed and accuracy of his hands and fingers to phenomenal levels. His friend Adrian Marshall describes the following example of sleight of hand that would make a magician jealous: “Bruce put a twopenny piece in my hand and then said, 'Let's see your speed.' “When I want to take twopence, close your fist and see if I can take it.” He made one movement, I closed my fist, then another - I closed it again. And the third time he didn’t have time to take the twopence either... The fourth time, however, everything happened a little faster, but when I closed my fist, the coin was still in it, at least I thought so. Opening my fist, I saw that not only was the twopence gone, but there was a penny in my hand.”
Other friends recalled similar stunts in which Lee demonstrated his amazing reaction speed. The shock was so fast that they could not notice it, and so close to the face that the man felt the wind, or asked a comrade to hold his hand under his chin and try to prevent Lee from closing his eyelids, but inevitably the eyelids were closed before the hand could be intercept, but so gently that the guinea pig almost did not feel it, such was the reward for intense training.
Coburn describes a workout that Lee called "Bridge Over the Chasm." It was necessary to get as close to the opponent as possible without getting hit, while each was required to keep an eye on the other. At the same time, a unified (united) process appeared, uniting the fighters into one. Lee allowed Coburn to touch him a couple of times to demonstrate his amazing speed and mobility. “What should also be emphasized about Bruce is that he himself was constantly learning. I think there wasn't a day that he didn't acquire something new. He would explode with enthusiasm, talking about some punch he had just invented - "bang-bang - look at that," he exclaimed, "and I tried... the flow of his energy was like a rod, always weakened to the very end, strength came only with the last blow.”
Bruce himself especially emphasized that he considers free (without restrictions) sparring, using protective devices, to be the best way to train. “For sparring, you should wear comfortable and reliable protective equipment. Then you can learn to choose the right moment and distance to successfully strike. It's a great idea to spar with different personalities - tall, short, fast, harsh, clumsy. Yes, at times, a clumsy enemy can defeat a better fighter than him, because his clumsiness is a kind of ragged rhythm. Thus, the best partner is a sharp one, strong man“, who is not limited by any concepts or boundaries, is a madman who can do God knows what, he scratches, grabs you with his hands, kicks you, etc.” Bruce's daily routine was, as a rule, as follows: getting up early in the morning, warming up. Often a run before breakfast or a ten mile “walk” on a stationary bike. Then he would relax by reading or watching TV or playing with the children. After an early lunch, he sat down again with his books, this time of day he spent reading. After that, his main training began. Before he started training, he usually didn't eat anything. Throughout the day he almost never sat without moving. Even while reading, he constantly moved a special chair with one hand, turning the pages of the book with the other hand. He was a kind of “perpetummobile” in human form.
Bruce Lee never took a break from such exercises. Friends said that they had never seen him at rest. Even when he was chatting at lunch or watching TV, he would press his palm underneath the table or flex his thigh muscles. Linda writes that she often saw a book in one hand and a “silent bell” in the other. Or he would suddenly jump up during the most entertaining conversation to carry out a new exercise that had just occurred to him. James Coburn says that when he was on a plane with Lee, Lee took turns hitting the table in front of the seat with his fist. When Coburn began to get on his nerves and made a remark, Lee apologized: “Sorry, man, I gotta stay in shape.”
Of all the natural exercises, that is, exercises that do not require special equipment or special training, that Lee used, isometric exercises were obviously the most beneficial. An isometric exercise is an exercise in which muscles are trained by applying them against a stationary object, such as a wall. Lee stood for hours or more, pressing the back of his hand against the balcony frames (to understand the effect, try this exercise for yourself for 3-4 minutes or for an hour or more).
Lee used isometric exercises to develop most of the muscles in his body. A particularly effective way of introducing tension to the largest number of muscles in a single exercise is the isometric barrier, which he invented for his gym. This was a metal rod, tightly fastened in the middle, which could be installed between two vertical bars, usually below shoulder level. Lee bent under him, leaned on his shoulders and the back of his head and pulled upward, while working his hip, shoulders and abdominal muscles. If he placed his hands on the sides of the supports and pushed, then the muscles of the arm were also involved in the work. Lee called his arms and legs, feet and hands “tools of production.” I constantly did a lot of exercises to keep them in working condition. Speaking about the exercises he used, he insisted: “Training must be functional, it must be close to reality.”
In 1965, Bruce wrote: “There are three stages in the art of Kung Fu. The first is primitive, i.e. stage of complete ignorance. The second is the stage of automatism, when the mind is still captured by the analysis of various movements. And the third is the stage of direct action, when, instead of imposing one’s style on the opponent, one adapts to his technique, analyzing its strengths and weaknesses, and then reuniting everything together, improving it if possible.”
In his efforts to maintain perfect health there were aspects that were absolutely unacceptable to others, for example, while giving due credit to what he would eat, Lee said, “You are what you eat,” hence it was necessary to eliminate tobacco and alcohol. Yet Lee's diet often left much to be desired. It seemed that at times he was almost entirely on vitamin tablets, sometimes eating nothing but steak, sometimes drinking ox's blood.
Robert, his brother, describes arriving in America and meeting Bruce at the airport, who stepped back with an expression of horror and exclaimed: “Oh my God, you're bony! Don’t tell anyone that you are my brother, otherwise I will be ashamed.”
The younger Lee was immediately escorted to his brother's home in Bel Air. The next morning he was woken up early, given tennis shoes and made to run three miles. Bruce soon recommended a suitable diet for Robert, who for some reason was not at all grateful.
“God, it was truly torture. Bruce was like a corporal, he made the mixture himself every day to make sure I drank it. It consisted of milk, protein flour for quick weight gain, bananas, ice cream, eggs with shells and pineapple oil. He made me drink a quart of it every day (2.25 liters)."
The quintessence of physical fitness, the first coil of the coiled spring from which all beginners must advance to a state of readiness to learn the arts of combat, is the perfection of breathing. However, as simple as it sounds, the art of breathing is very complex and time consuming. Usually the majority (obviously, Bruce Lee himself before Ip Man took him in his hands and revealed his secrets to the young student) breathes too shallowly, the majority breathes from the chest, but we must breathe from the stomach. The advantage of using the diaphragm rather than the torso when exhaling and inhaling air is primarily that in the first case the lungs are emptied and filled more efficiently and completely. The practical medical benefits of this are obvious, but the benefits of this exercise for the beginner are much deeper. By inhaling deeply through the nose and exhaling through the mouth, while ensuring that the chest remains calm and still and the stomach does not work, the fighter increases his reserve of Ki, with all the benefits of the powerful inner peace that all this provides.
Bruce Lee won't be remembered as a dietitian, and he doesn't need to be. His body was like a model of muscular grace. He avoided the overtrained awkwardness of a weightlifter, or the Mr. Great Body figure, or the unattractive muscles of a Spartan runner. long distances. Lee's body was an instrument of primal beauty. Which is why he intended the exercises to work with him (fortunately, they were recorded and come to us in interviews, articles and private memoirs). Such physical development, as Lee pointed out with conviction, is not in itself complete. As he said about it: “Here is a finger pointing to the moon. Please don't mistake your finger for the moon. Don't strain your finger and miss out on the beautiful view of the sky. After all, the usefulness of this finger is that it points to the light that illuminates the finger and everything else.”
Bruce had a firm belief that a correct understanding of the martial arts could only be achieved through individual work with the student, and this was one of the main reasons why he abandoned his original idea of establishing a chain of kung fu schools. It was one of his talents as a teacher that he needed, first of all, to force a person to turn on his consciousness in order to perceive the ideas given to him. What I present below is just one of Bruce's rough, personal training plans. It was not designed for students, so Bruce modified it where necessary. As soon as his student mastered the next height, he was immediately individually offered something new and addressed specifically to him.
Option 1
(Monday, Wednesday, Friday) 1. Jumping rope 2. Bends and rotations 3. Bending in the lower back (cat stretches) 4. Split jumps 5. Squats 6. Kicks to the head
Option 2
(Monday, Wednesday Friday) (forearm, hand, waist) 1. Rotation of the torso 2. Rotation, flexion, extension in the hands 3. Rotations in the knees 4. Tilts of the torso to the sides 5. Twisting of the hands with a load
Option 3
(Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday) 1. Exercises for stretching the ligaments and muscles of the legs 2. Swinging the leg to the sides 3. Jumping, pressing the hips to the body 4. Rotation of the shoulders 5. Stretching the groin muscles and ligaments 6. Rotation of the hands
Option 4
(Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday) 1. Leg swings 2. Wrist crunches 3. Squats with simultaneous rotation 4. Leg raises with a bent knee 5. Strengthening the abdominal muscles 6. Work to strengthen the hands (rotations with weights)
Training and Strength Development
He also developed a program to keep his students fit.
Split jumps
Push-ups
Running in place
Rotation of cries
Kicks to the head
Squats and knee rotations in a deep squat
Swing your legs to the sides and slowly raise your legs to the side
Bruce Lee started his regular workouts at the age of 13. Two words best describe them: thoughtful and grueling. Bruce Lee was an ideal athlete with phenomenally developed muscles and crazy speed. According to Bruce, it was possible to study the anatomy of the muscles; the relief was worked out at the highest level. Many people think that Bruce Lee placed the main emphasis on endurance and speed, and it is difficult to disagree with this, but over time he began to actively study nutrition and bodybuilding, and then became seriously interested in strength training.
Basic Workouts
— It’s not difficult to notice that Bruce Lee paid great attention to the abdominal muscles; he considered this a kind of basis for the speed of combat. In each of his films, the athlete impressed us primarily with his abs. Favorite exercise for development abdominal muscles Bruce Lee can be considered the “Dragon Flag”; you could also see this type of ab work done by Sylvester Stallone in the “Rocky” films.
To perform this workout, you will need a bench on which you need to lie with your back and grab the back of it with your hands. Next, slowly lift almost your entire body up, tensing your abdominal muscles. Your shoulders serve as support. Then slowly lower your body back down. This exercise is still considered one of the most effective for the abdominal muscles.
— A significant part of Bruce Lee’s time was spent training with own weight. With a height of 171 cm, he weighed different time from 60 to 70 kg. He just fanatically trained push-ups and pull-ups. He could do pull-ups on one hand without any problems (he did this about 50 times), and do push-ups not just on one hand, but on two fingers of one hand!
— Bruce Lee always kept a detailed diary of his training, especially his fighting ones. For example, you can take his records for January 1968. Over the course of a month, Bruce Lee completed: 15 workouts for punching and stretching, 12 workouts for developing speed, 121 sets of crunches, 129 sets of hanging leg raises, 19 workouts for leg muscles, about 10 hours of running, some of which were sprints. . Considering that this is not all the records for the month, it can easily be assumed that Bruce Lee really trained every day.
— If we talk about strength training, we can assume that Bruce Lee’s favorite equipment was the barbell. He often used exercises such as classic bench press lying barbells, biceps curls, and standing barbell presses. Bruce began to perform the last exercise from a squatting position, taking the barbell with a shoulder-width grip, he lifted the barbell with a jerk to his chest and smoothly rose, and at the end raised the projectile above his head. So he did 2 sets of 8 repetitions. In general, Bruce followed the rule of 3 strength training sessions per week. All other days were completely scheduled for speed and endurance classes.
Nutrition
There are several basic rules that Bruce Lee adhered to. In those distant years sports nutrition was not so developed, but Bruce was already preparing protein shakes himself and drinking them twice a day. So, let's look at the basic rules:
— The famous rule “eat less, but more often” is now widely known to everyone, but in the 60-70s, not many people used it, and our main character was among them. Eating small meals 5-6 times a day was one of the foundations of Bruce Lee's discipline.
— Ginseng and honey. During training and grueling film shooting, Bruce Lee often drank an energy drink, which he made based on honey, ginseng and tea. Sometimes tea could be replaced with water. Without any energy supplements, it would be impossible to endure such workouts.
— As we already wrote, Bruce Lee prepared protein shakes on his own. He used ingredients such as eggs, bananas, milk powder (Bruce didn't really like dairy products, so he always preferred milk powder for cocktails), wheat germ, peanut butter and brewer's yeast. This is a protein shake from the 60s.
In the first part of the article about Bruce Lee, we talked a little about his biography and told some reliable eyewitness stories. In the second, as I promised, we will look at how Bruce Lee trained.
Bruce Lee and training
And again bodybuilding
After Bruce Lee decided it was time to supplement his training with weights, he immediately subscribed to every bodybuilding magazine published in the United States, including Joe Weider's. Then they were called “Mr. Olympia” and “Bodybuilder and Strength”. From these magazines, he extracted the latest training methods and tested them on himself, testing the methods with his own sports experience.
When Bruce Lee moved to the capital of the American film industry, Los Angeles, Linda recalls that he spent hours wandering through bookstores, looking for works on bodybuilding, athlete nutrition, and recovery methods among old books. During one of these trips, Lee acquired a true rarity - a book by the author, not reprinted since the beginning of the century, whose sculptural image is held in the hands of the Olympia winners. It was called “Power and How to Find It.”
When Bruce Lee died tragically in 1973, his son inherited a huge library and thus he inherited Bruce Lee's training system, where, along with books on martial arts, there were 140 scientific works devoted exclusively to bodybuilding!
Having creatively processed colossal amounts of information, Bruce Lee compiled a special program for himself, which was supposed to develop the missing strength endurance.
Bruce Lee's training from eyewitnesses
Bruce Lee's training methods are the subject of much conversation. But what do eyewitnesses say?
“He never trained in an athletic club,” says Herb Jackson, “only at home. He liked to compare training to playing the violin. Imagine, he told me, fifty people are packed into the hall, each with their own instrument. Everyone is working on something special, and in this nightmare you need to be able to concentrate!..”
Training and nutrition Bruce Lee
At home, Bruce Lee had a set of dumbbells weighing about 50 kg, olympic barbell, bench press racks and several heavy weight dumbbells.
Bruce Lee trained according to the schedule, which consisted of 3 classes per week. It was purely strength training.
Over time, having become convinced of the effectiveness of the technique, Bruce Lee even included weights in his professional training. As Inosanto says, Bruce brought light dumbbells of different weights to his school and began to do katas according to the principle of progressive training! Punch training included 12 series of 100 punches each. Bruce used the “pyramid” principle here: he performed the first series with 0.5 kg dumbbells, the second with 1 kg. This was followed by 1.5 kg, 2.5 kg, 3.5 kg and 5 kg. He performed the remaining six series in the reverse order: with weights of 5, 3.5, 2.5, 1.5 and 0.5 kg. He made another series with “zero” weight.
Linda says that Bruce Lee did not forget the dumbbells even on rest days: “At first I was very surprised that Bruce did several things at the same time. Imagine him standing in the middle of the room in front of a working TV showing his favorite boxing matches. With his feet he performs some unimaginable blows in the air. At the same time, he holds an open book in his left hand and turns to it when what is happening on the screen ceases to interest him. Well, in right hand he holds a dumbbell and does a “bicep curl!” with it.
The importance of forearm strength and love for the abs
Since the strength of the forearms plays a special role in the art of kung fu, Bruce Lee directed all his creative genius towards the development of this particular muscle group. He found a source of inspiration in bodybuilding manuals. From there he extracted not only the technique of “pumping up” the forearms, but also descriptions of the design of special simulators. He even contracted his close friend George Lee to produce similar simulators and those modifications that he himself came up with.
George Lee says: “Bruce usually sent me sketches of such devices, and I had to develop a drawing and build the simulator itself from it. I was not a fool and understood that if Bruce ordered something, then, apparently, it was very effective. Therefore, I made the first simulator for myself and hid it at home, but I brought the second copy to him ... "
The result of such targeted training was forearms of amazing strength. “They felt hard, like a baseball bat,” says Van Williams, a US wrestling champion. “Bruce once invited me to fight him. I sat down at the table with the idea of playing along with him as a friend. I weighed 112 kg at that time. How could I compete with Bruce seriously! However, it turned out that I did not have enough strength to overcome the resistance of his hand! Moreover, I couldn’t move his hand even a millimeter!”
In a conversation with Herb Jackson, Lee jokingly said that he could become a world champion in wrestling.
Another equally important point in the life of Bruce Lee was abdominal training. Linda says: “Bruce was obsessed with his abs. He did endless torso raises, leg raises on the floor and hanging, torso raises on a “Roman chair” ... "
When performing sit-ups from a prone position, Bruce Lee strictly followed the optimal bodybuilding technique. “The body needs to be rolled up, as if a piece of paper is rolled up into a tube,” he said. “First you need to lift your head off the floor, then your shoulders, then your middle area and finally your lower back...”
You can see the description of the abdominal muscles program in the photo taken from Bruce Lee's training diary.
The importance of aerobic exercise in Bruce Lee's training
From special literature on bodybuilding, Bruce Lee learned that body fat are the worst enemy of energy. An extra hundred or two grams of fat, penetrated by the finest blood capillaries, places a huge burden on the heart. When the heart has to push blood through the capillaries muscle tissue, the muscle itself helps him due to its contraction. It is clear that in the case of fat, the entire load falls on the heart. Since endurance is directly related to the potential of the cardiorespiratory system, Bruce Lee included aerobic exercise in his training program. In particular, he supplemented strength training with jogging of 4-9 km.
According to Bruce Lee's training partner Bob Wall, Lee's constitution was ideal for long-distance running. However, Lee literally tortured himself with sprint bursts, running the first one and a half to two kilometers, then he walked the same distance at a fast pace, then the grueling run began again...
From time to time, Lee replaced road runs with a bicycle ergometer. The “trip” lasted 45 minutes and covered a distance of 20 km.
Peak of knowledge and form
Bruce Lee regularly read bodybuilding magazines in search of new drugs to help athletes fight subcutaneous fat. He always bought every new drug and tried it on himself. If the drug worked, Lee did not stop experimenting. It was as if he was constantly in search. By the early 70s, he had finally formulated his own method of approach to training, which coincided letter by letter with Joe Weider's Principle of Instinctive Training: “Learn from your experience, remember what is useful, discard what is unnecessary and try to find your own way...”
By this time, bodybuilding had finally turned from a temporary panacea into part of sporting destiny Bruce Lee. Bob Wall, who visited Lee in Hong Kong, was amazed at the amount of sports equipment in his apartment. Lee's car was always parked outside because the garage was filled with exercise equipment. They weren't except in the kitchen. Everywhere Lee stayed for more than half an hour, including in his office, there were dumbbells and barbells. As Bob says, Lee, in fact, did not have a life in the usual sense of the word. His life was one continuous training session!
As for Bruce Lee’s nutrition, it was completely based on Chinese cuisine, since it contains a lot of fats and proteins that are good for growth and very few carbohydrates. Lee almost never allowed himself extra calories, which is evident from his lean body.
Bruce Lee and training have become one!
He continued to train regularly, finding the schedule that was most beneficial from the standpoint of individual recovery mechanisms: two days of training - two days of rest. The general training scheme has also changed. Each exercise was performed in 3 sets, 15 repetitions each. Of Wider's Principles, the priority ones were the Principle of Variety, when each workout included its own types of exercise, never repeated, and the Hard/Easy Principle. For example, Lee did bench presses with a weight of 80 kg for 3 sets of 10 repetitions, then dropped the weight to 45 kg and did the same number of sets with 20-30 repetitions.
Bruce Lee listened sensitively to even the most elusive trends in bodybuilding, and, perhaps, was the first to regularly practice the so-called. "partial repetitions" He performed exercises only in that area of amplitude that provided the muscle with the maximum degree of contraction. For example, in the bench press he took off heavy barbell from the racks and repeatedly lowered it no more than 6-10 cm. Bruce Lee said that this form of exercise perfectly develops “explosive” strength.
According to Linda Lee, by the summer of 1964, thanks to bodybuilding, Bruce had reached an unprecedented peak in athletic form. Enormous physical strength, combined with unique fighting skill and amazing reaction (an electronic timer showed that Bruce Lee moved a distance of about a meter in two hundredths of a second!), made Bruce Lee practically invincible in the world martial arts. He had no equal and could not have had one, if only because none of the great karate authorities decided to creatively violate age-old traditions. They habitually looked for the source of strength in karate itself. Bruce Lee's worldview horizons turned out to be wider than the medieval framework of combat exercises. He allowed himself to doubt the truths that are unshakable for a karateka, and discovered the only true source of strength - progressive training. As a result, he really turned out to be close to what he himself called “power over the world.” He achieved amazing power. And he did this by combining with the ease of a genius things that seemed incompatible: karate and bodybuilding.
For two decades this amazing find was a secret. Now we know her...
Based on materials from the magazine Strength and Beauty for October 1994
This is Bruce Lee, with his fanatical approach to training. Let us in the hall show at least some of the will to improve that Bruce showed. Let's bring the words training and our name closer so that they are as inseparable as training and Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee and training. Patience and willpower to us! See you again!
40 years ago, young athletes found inspiration in the inimitable physical strength, speed and flexibility of Bruce Lee. Not much has changed since then. Take out the heavy bag and adopt the training principles of the great master!
Openness and flexibility are two characteristic features of Bruce Lee's approach to physical training.
“Absorb what’s useful. Cut off the useless." These legendary words are often attributed to Bruce Lee, and although it is not known for certain whether he actually spoke them, there is no doubt that this principle underlay his philosophy. martial art. The legendary and eclectic martial arts style of Jeet Kune Do, the “Way of the Leading Fist,” is based on throwing a punch at the moment the opponent’s attack begins, when any external influence slows down the opponent and leads to a fatal outcome. Thanks to this, Bruce Lee was unpredictable, and his fights were spectacular!
Openness and flexibility are two characteristic features of Bruce Lee's approach to physical training. While colleagues in the shop and their mentors were wasting precious time on empty debates about traditions and futile searches for one-sided, technology-oriented and functional training training systems, Lee absorbed the best that the various schools had to offer. He took what he needed from martial arts, bodybuilding and other training styles. Lee was loyal to his barbell and his kettlebells, but he also loved circuit training; I practiced kicking and punching every day with complete dedication, but also ran, rode a bike and jumped rope.
In short, he was a well-rounded athlete with a body that Joe Weider described as the most ripped he had ever seen. 40 years after Bruce's tragic death, people continue to be inspired by his unique blend of speed, strength and flexibility. New photos of Bruce Lee without a T-shirt still appear on magazine covers today and become the main topic of the issue.
Of course, Lee never trained just to look good. The main goal was to create a perfectly functioning body, and appearance was just a byproduct of his training. According to Bruce, training is “the art of self-expression human body" We'll tell you how he did it and how you can replicate it.
Train to fight
Lee belonged to the sport's elite: since the late 50s, he was a mentor and fighter, capable of incredible feats of strength such as two-finger push-ups and the "inch punch" that sent opponents flying. However, he revised all training methods after an event that occurred in 1964. That year, Bruce Lee was challenged by Won Jae Man, a representative of the orthodox branch of Chinese martial arts. According to sources, the reason for the disagreement was Bruce Lee's willingness to teach traditional Chinese martial arts everyone - even Europeans. According to this version of events, if Lee had lost, he would have been forced to close his thriving martial arts school.
Soon Bruce Lee won and retained the right to teach anyone, anything. However, Lee later admitted that although the fight lasted only three minutes and ended with him running after Meng around the pavilion, the fight took much longer than expected and required more effort than Lee expected. Angry with himself, Lee decided to overhaul his training program and began searching for what his wife Linda called “more sophisticated and grueling training methods.”
Very soon, Lee switched to an intensive program of strength development and general functional training, which he adhered to until his death in 1973. He constantly changed the content of his training and always recorded it on video. This means that while we can't recreate Bruce Lee's exact "workout routine," we can piece together his favorite exercises and routines. In short, if you want to leave behind a “muscle treasure map” for future generations, or simply want to draw one for yourself, follow the example of Bruce Lee and take as many travel notes as possible.
Train hard, hit hard
Any conversation about training principles Bruce Lee should start with him corporate identity martial art. Bruce began mastering martial arts under the guidance of the great master Ip Man, the patriarch of the Wing Chun school (Kung Fu style). Having learned the basics, Lee continued to develop and over time created his own style - Jeet Kune Do. Unlike traditional schools, Jeet Kune Do is not tied to any fixed tenets. According to Lee, it is “style without style,” a free-flying martial arts that embraces whatever works.
But does this mean that Bruce did not need to carefully practice his technique? On the contrary, he had to keep his entire arsenal of techniques in full combat readiness, and therefore he devoted the lion's share of his free time to training. Here is a typical list of kicks and punches that Lee practiced.
Punching the punching bag
Punching: Monday/Wednesday/Friday
- Jab – pneumatic bag, wall pad, punching bag and floor bag
- Cross – wall pad, heavy punching bag, punching bag and floor bag
- Hook – heavy punching bag, wall pad, punching bag and floor bag
- Cross from top to bottom – pillow, heavy punching bag
- Series – heavy punching bag, punching bag and floor bag
- Speed training with a pneumatic bag on a platform
Kicks: Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday
- Side impact
- Side leg hook
- Turning kick
- Front and back kick
- Heel strike
Lee often said that a punching bag cannot be punched automatically, without emotion. Imagine that the bag is your worst enemy, and hit him with all your heart. He also emphasized how important it is to remain invulnerable during an attack - even in training. Lee constantly moved, made distracting maneuvers, feinted punches and stepped aside even while working with a boxing bag, thereby simulating a real fight. He firmly believed that a fighter who does not take training seriously will never be able to apply his skills in a stressful situation.
Rod path
Even before the fight with Won Jae Man, Lee understood that no fighter could do without proper strength training. However, it was this fight, which coincided with the beginning of television and cinematic activities, that became the beginning of Bruce Lee's serious relationship with heavy iron.
dragon flag
Lee started by doing bicep curls all day long. reverse grip to pump up the muscles of the forearm. Feeling the full benefit strength training, he moved on to comprehensive strength training. On an ongoing basis, Bruce used two alternative training programs to develop amazing strength:
Alternate workouts A and B every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday
Workout A
Workout B
In his ability to simultaneously work on muscle development and functional training, Bruce Lee was ahead of his time. Hungry for knowledge, he looked for evidence of the effectiveness of each technique and made his choice consciously, based on the results of research and experiments. As a result, he managed to transform himself from a skinny 50-pound guy into a 65-pound warrior who strikes with the force of a jackhammer.
At the intersection of meditation and functional training
Lee did not neglect endurance training. He understood that strength training was of little use without adequate endurance, so he used a variety of techniques to achieve amazing functional fitness.
Lee had someone throw a medicine ball onto his stomach while he lay on the floor and tensed his abs.
Run. For Lee, running has always been more than just a way general physical training, but also a unique form of meditation, because at this time he was left alone with his thoughts. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday he started by running a few kilometers. 6 kilometers was his favorite distance, which he ran in about 20-25 minutes, varying his running pace. After a period of calm, even running, he did a sprint run at short distance, and then returned to a moderate pace—much like what we call high-intensity interval training today.
Jumping rope. The jump rope not only helped Lee develop endurance and leg muscle strength, but also allowed him to flit easily during sparring and fights. As a rule, Lee worked out with a jump rope on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, devoting about 30 minutes to this exercise.
A ride on the bicycle. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, Lee completed his jump rope workout with a spin on the exercise bike, which required even more endurance and finally finished off his leg muscles. He raced on his trainer at high speed for 45 minutes.
Lee's famous shield
Bruce Lee, as well as other outstanding representatives of martial arts, abdominal Press It was needed not only for beauty. It was a real shield, capable of repelling any blow. To specifically target his abs, Lee would often have someone throw a medicine ball onto his stomach while he lay on the floor and tensed his abs.
However traditional exercises for the abs, such as torso raises, leg raises and side crunches were also part of it training program. Here is one of the workouts that he did on a daily basis:
Bruce Lee Abs Workout
Feed the dragon
No athlete will jump from 50 to 65 kilograms without an adequate nutrition program. Like us, Lee had a penchant for protein drinks and made his own from powdered milk and some ingredients like root and royal jelly, with powerful doses of vitamins added.
He was very careful about his diet and never used foods that could harm the body or negatively affect performance. Coffee was blacklisted, but Bruce loved tea. At the same time, Lee was an ardent admirer of traditional Chinese cuisine. In his view, Chinese cuisine was built around quality plant-based carbohydrates from rice and vegetables, in contrast to Western cuisine, which was overzealous in its use of proteins and fats. It was carbohydrates that Bruce considered an essential nutrient for people with high level physical activity, and he distributed carbohydrates evenly between 4-5 meals.
