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40 years ago, young athletes found inspiration in Bruce Lee’s peerless intensity and wiry strength.
Not much has changed since. Get out the heavy bag and make Lee’s training style work for you!
Openness and flexibility also defined how Lee approached his physical training.
“Absorb what is useful. Reject what is useless.” These legendary words are often attributed to Bruce Lee, and while it’s debatable whether they actually originated with him, there’s no doubt that they strike at the core of his martial philosophy.
His legendary and eclectic fighting style of Jeet Kune Do, “the way of the intercepting fist” focused on crafting his strikes around his opponent’s incoming attack, at a moment when anything extraneous would just slow him down with tragic results. As a result, he was as unpredictable as he was entertaining.
Openness and flexibility also defined how Lee approached his physical training.
While trainers and his peers wasted their time with territorial squabbles and quests for one-size-fits-all training programs, Lee was receptive to a wide range of traditions. He took what he needed from martial arts, bodybuilding, and other styles of training. He was devoted to his barbell and kettlebells, but also loved his Nautilus-style Marcy Circuit Trainer. He practiced his kicks and punches daily with full intensity, but he also ran, cycled, and jumped rope.
In short, he was an all-around athlete, and the result was a body that Joe Weider once described as the most defined he had ever seen. Over 40 years after Lee’s tragic death, people continue to be inspired by his special combination of speed, strength, and flexibility. The simple discovery of a few new photos of him shirtless is still enough to earn a cover story.
Of course, Lee never trained solely for the purpose of looking good. His aim was to develop a functional body, and the appearance was a byproduct of his training. Training, he said, was “the art of expressing the human body.” Here’s how he did it, and how you can do the same.
Fit to fight
Lee was an elite athlete, competitor, and teacher as early as the late 1950s, able to accomplish incredible feats of strength like two-finger push-ups for reps and “one-inch” punches that sent his recipients flying. However, he reconsidered all his training methods after an incident in 1964.
That year, Lee was challenged to a duel by Wong Jack Man, a disciple of a very traditional branch of Chinese martial arts. The cause of the challenge, according to most accounts, was Bruce’s willingness to teach traditional Chinese fighting methods to Caucasians. By this version of the story, if Lee lost, he would agree to close down his flourishing martial arts school.
Lee triumphed over his adversary in short order, maintaining his ability to teach whomever he wished. However, he later said that even though the fight took only 3 minutes and ended with Lee chasing Man around the studio, it took much longer than what it should have taken, and he felt more winded than he should have. Furious at himself, Lee decided to ruthlessly re-examine his training and look for what his wife Linda called “more sophisticated and exhaustive training methods.”
In short order, Lee began an intensive program of strength and fitness that continued up until his death in 1973. He constantly changed his workouts, but he also always recorded them. This means that although it is impossible to nail down an exact “Bruce Lee workout,” we can piece together his favorite movements and programs. If you want to leave behind a muscular treasure map for future generations-or just for yourself-follow Lee’s example and take good notes along the way.
Train hard to hit hard
Any conversation about Lee’s training has to begin with his martial arts practice. Having begun his learning from the late grandmaster Yip Man in the Wing Chun style of Kung Fu, Lee kept progressing until he had formed his own method, Jeet Kune Do. Unlike more traditional styles, Jeet Kune Do was not bound to any rigid forms. It was, Lee said, “a style without style,” a free flowing manner of fighting that used whatever worked.
Does this mean Lee no longer had any need to prepare meticulously? On the contrary, it meant that he needed to have all his martial tools ready in an instant. As such, he devoted hours every week to his practice. Here is a typical log of the punches and kicks that Lee practiced:
Punches: monday/wednesday/friday
Jab-Speed Bag, Foam Pad, Top and Bottom Bag
Cross-Foam Pad, Heavy Bag, Top and Bottom Bag
Hook-Heavy Bag, Foam Pad, Top and Bottom Bag
Overhand Cross-Pad, Heavy Bag
Combinations- Heavy Bag, Top and Bottom Bag
Platform Speed Bag Workout
Kicks: tuesday/thursday/saturday
Side Kick
Hook Kick
Spin Kick
Rear and Front Thrust
Heel Kick
Lee would often say that when you hit a heavy bag, you shouldn’t do it passively. Imagine that the bag is your worst enemy, and give it all you have. He also emphasized the importance of never leaving oneself vulnerable to attack, even while practicing. Lee was continuously moving, feinting, and side-stepping while training on the heavy bag to simulate a real fight. He believed a martial artist who didn’t take practice time this seriously would never be able to transfer what he learned in the dojo to the streets.
The way of the barbell
Even before his fight with Wong Jack Man, Lee knew that no martial artist could be their best without proper strength development. However, his experience in that duel, combined with his entry into television and film acting, led Lee to launch a devoted relationship with the iron.
At first, Lee did reverse curls all day to develop his forearms. Once he saw how beneficial weight training was, he began on a more well-rounded weight training program. These were two alternating routines he employed to build his amazing levels of strength:
Alternate workouts A and B each Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday
Workout A
One-arm, kettlebell clean
2 sets of 8 reps
Barbell squat
2 sets of 12 reps
Bent-arm barbell pullover
2 sets of 8 reps
Barbell bench press – medium grip
2 sets of 6 reps
Stiff leg barbell good morning
2 sets of 8 reps
Barbell curl
2 sets of 8 reps
Workout B
One-arm, kettlebell clean
4 sets of 6 reps
Barbell squat
4 sets of 6 reps
Barbell bench press – medium grip
4 sets of 5 reps
Stiff leg barbell good morning
4 sets of 6 reps
Barbell curl
4 sets of 6 reps
In his ability to program for both full-body functional strength and muscle development, Lee was far ahead of his times. A voracious reader, he backed up every choice he made with research and tracked its effectiveness to make sure it was working. Along the way, he transformed himself from a skinny 100-pound guy into a 130-pound warrior who could hit like a truck.
Endurance training wasn’t an afterthought to Lee. He knew his strength training was limited without an equal focus on stamina, and he used several modalities to achieve his supreme levels of cardio conditioning.
Conditioning meets meditation
Running: For Lee, running was a form of meditation in addition to conditioning. It was the time for him to be alone with his thoughts. He started most Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays with a run of several miles. His favorite distance was around 4 miles, which he would run in around 20-25 minutes, changing tempo throughout.
After a stretch of easy, even strides, he would sprint for a short distance, and then return to easier running similar to today’s interval training protocols. He would also shuffle his feet while running.
Rope Skipping: Jumping rope not only helped Lee maintain his stamina and leg muscles, but also helped him stay light on his feet. He would usually do this on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday for around 30 minutes.
Cycling: On Tuesdays, Thursday, and Saturdays, Lee would follow up his rope jumping with a session of stationary cycling, further developing his stamina and exhausting his legs. He often rode at high speeds for 45 minutes on his Exercycle.
The famous Lee core
For Lee, as for other elite martial artists, ab training was about more than just looking good. It was about developing a shield that would be able to withstand any punch. To hammer this home, Lee would often have someone drop a medicine ball on his stomach while he would lie on the ground to further toughen his gut. However, conventional abs exercises like situps, leg raises, side bends were also an integral part of his ab training routine. Here’s a sample of one of the types of workouts he would subject himself to on a daily basis:
Bruce Lee ab workout
Barbell side bend
5 sets to fallure
Hanging leg raise
5 sets to fallure
Sit-up
5 sets to fallure
Feeding the dragon
No hard-training athlete jumps from 100 to 130 pounds without nutrition playing a huge part. Like many of us, Lee had a fondness for protein-rich drinks, blending his own weight-gain shakes with powdered milk and supplements like ginseng, royal jelly, and massive doses of vitamins.
He was highly particular about his diet, never consuming foods that he suspected could harm his body or impair his performance. He put coffee on his banned list, favoring tea instead. However, Lee enjoyed his Chinese food unapologetically. In his view, Chinese food placed sufficient emphasis on carbohydrates from vegetables and rice, unlike western foods, which he felt leaned too heavily on proteins and fats. He saw carbs as essential for a person with high levels of physical activity like him, spreading them across 4-5 meals a day.
Bruce Lee inspired training
Somewhere between his kicks, weights, and cardio, you probably realized that Lee’s training style isn’t for everyone. He devoted hours every day to physical activity —after all, it was a crucial part of his livelihood.
The rest of us may not be able to match his type of high-volume physicality, but we can still take influence from his visionary approach to fitness. Here are two scaled down Bruce Lee-inspired training programs that could be made to fit with just about any busy schedule.
Far from everyone will find Bruce Lee training style easy. He used to dedicate several hours daily to his workout
Three-day program
Day 1
Alternating kettlebell press
2 sets of 8 reps
Barbell squat
2 sets of 6 reps
Stiff leg barbell good morning
2 sets of 8 reps
Fighting practice
10 minutes
Running, treadmill
15 minutes
Barbell side bend
2 sets to fallure
Hanging leg raise
2 sets to fallure
Sit-up
2 sets to fallure
Practice various punches on the heavy bag for 10 minutes, then practice various kicks on the heavy bag for 10 minutes
Day 2
Fighting practice
15 minutes
Rope jumping
2 minutes, 1 min rest, repeat 5 times
Bicycling, stationery
15 minutes
Barbell side bend
1 set to fallure
Hanging leg raise
1 set to fallure
Sit-up
1 set to fallure
Day 3
Alternating kettlebell press
2 sets of 8 reps
Barbell squat
2 sets of 6 reps
Stiff leg barbell good morning
2 sets of 8 reps
Fighting practice, 25 minutes of mixing kicks and punches thrown on the heavy bag
Running, treadmill
1 set of 15 minutes.
Barbell side bend
2 sets to fallure
Hanging leg raise
2 sets to fallure
Sit-up
2 sets to fallure
Six-day program
Can’t spare an hour three times a week? Consider making some changes in your life. And until you do, consider this program, which takes the same movements and spreads them across six workouts of about 30 minutes apiece.
Day 1 and 4
Fighting practice, 20 minutes on a heavy bag
Barbell side bend
2 sets to fallure
Hanging leg raise
2 sets to fallure
Sit-up
2 sets to fallure
Day 2 and 5
Alternating kettlebell press
2 sets of 8 reps
Barbell squat
2 sets of 12 reps
Barbell bench press
2 sets of 6 reps
Stiff leg barbell good morning
2 sets of 8 reps
Running, treadmill
1 set of 15 minutes
Day 3 and 6
Fighting practice: 20 minutes on heavy bag
Rope jumping
5 sets of 2 reps
Author: Arnav Sarkar
12 comments
Compound movements are definitely better for athletes. Only bodybuilders should practice isolation! Muscles groups must work together to generate strength, and stabilizer muscles need to be well developed, otherwise your muscles will just give out. Thanks for writing a great article.
Hey Kenneth,
The gym at my work is in a small space and they don’t have a pull-up bar (I’ll have to check still if they have one to mount on the door frame). Do you have any suggestions for a good full back work out, particularly lower back? Even though I know keeping my core engaged will work my back (and I do feel it), I often feel like it’s not getting worked enough.
Thanks,
J
PS. I really like your article on the foam roller, been using it for years now and I’m glad it’s finally getting the recognition. I haven’t seen one of those new rollers though.
No pull-up bar?! That’s ridiculous! It’s hard to find a substitute exercise, but you can try cable machine pull-downs. However, this won’t develop your strength and size as effectively compared to using your own body weight. Definitely look into investing into a pull-up bar. It’s worth it.
For lower back, I’d focus mainly on deadlifts. You can even try “Good Mornings,” but make sure you get the proper technique down as the chance of injury is high if you do it incorrectly. Bent over rows and the machine cable row are also great exercises that emphasize core stability and work your back.
I responded to your foam roller comment in that particular article! Take care JLee.
I want to add some muscle to my lower abs in order to give them more definition, can you build ab size without excess calories or does it require over compensation like every other muscle? thanks in advance
Your abs will develop as long as you consistently train them and do cardio/HIIT to burn fat. The bad thing about ingesting excess calories is that you’ll most likely gain more body fat than you’d prefer. As a result, this layer of fat will cover your abs from showing. Work your abs with hanging leg raises 2-3x per week and keep your diet clean. You’ll notice results in a few months.
I want to develop a strong core any good ideas you can share ?
Thanks
Hey Brian,
Personally, I’ve found that squats and deadlifts have been the most effective at improving core strength. Combine that with ab exercises like planks and hanging leg raises and you’ll be set.
Is this program ideal for somebody trying to lose a great amount of body fat? Around 50 lbs?
Hey James,
This type of training is more focused on developing strength and muscle rather than helping to lose body fat. If you’re looking to lose around 50 lbs of fat, you may want to think of incorporating longer intervals of HIIT into your workouts. If you’re looking to get into shape, I’d recommend downloading my free KFX: Workout & Nutrition Manual. It offers a comprehensive set of workouts and diet plan. The diet is essential if you’re looking to lose weight.
Bruce Lee was truly inspiring. Thanks, it’s time to revamp my training.
Only a smiling visitant here to share the love (:, btw outstanding style. “The price one pays for pursuing a profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.” by James Arthur Baldwin.
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