Bruce Lee's principles of nutrition and training. Bruce Lee's workout and nutrition

Bruce Lee, the legendary martial artist and film actor, creator of the martial arts style Jeet Kune Do, based physical training on openness and flexibility. Bruce Lee's training methods organically combined the best that he took from various schools of martial arts, bodybuilding, and other training styles. It was the style of the well-rounded athlete, aimed at transforming an ordinary body into a perfectly functioning one, possessing both speed, strength and flexibility.

Bruce Lee's early training from the late 1950s had already turned him into an incredibly strong fighter and mentor, and brought prosperity to his school. But everything changed in 1964 after a fight between him and his challenger Won Jae Man. In case of victory, Lee continued to teach anyone and anything; in case of defeat, he closed his school forever. The three-minute fight gave Lee the victory, but he was angry that he had spent much more time and effort on it than he had planned. Therefore, Bruce Lee’s entire training program was radically revised by him in the direction of complexity and maximum return of strength.

His physical training is a super-strong crystal with five sides, without any of which it immediately crumbles into dust.

Running Edge

Among all the exercises, Bruce Lee attached special importance to running and believed that if such a load is too heavy for a person, he has nothing to do in sports. Six times a week he ran for at least 15 minutes, and in the “ragged rhythm” style, i.e. with frequent changes of tempo. In addition, immediately after running I “racked up the kilometers” on the bike

simulator at speeds up to 50 km/h, developing endurance.

Edge of sparring

More precisely, free sparring as the best means for honing combat skills. Each sparring is carried out in protective equipment - this is training, and the athlete does not need unnecessary injuries at all. Before you start sparring, you should practice your strikes, for which you need to have wooden dummies and bags filled with beans. Thus, Bruce Lee's training brought Jeet Kune Do to perfection.

Alternation edge

Sparring alone is not enough. Lee changed the direction of the loads (arms, legs) and their focus (endurance, strength). Mandatory - abdominal press, a combination of running and cycling, jumping rope, barbell. Every day about two hours were spent honing the blows. Only certain muscle groups were subjected to stress every day, while the rest rested.

Edge of Movement

No one has ever seen Bruce Lee outside of training. It was Mr. Perpetual Motion. Every minute he came up with a load, albeit a small one, for the muscles of his body. Even when I read books. He kept the weights on his legs and arms. And at the same time, he was a caring family man and made sure to set aside time for spiritual self-development.

The Edge of Discipline

Discipline is an unmistakable indicator All of Bruce Lee's training would have gone down the drain if he had at least once reduced the load or abandoned them for a day. The master did not give himself rest even when he was away from home, where he had the necessary equipment. He came up with immovable objects. For example, I tried to move the wall of a house for several hours.

Bruce Lee's training prepared the athlete for real sparring, which the master considered the ultimate goal of all exercises, which are just a tool.

The most important thing: the master himself did not consider his training to be some kind of template applicable to absolutely everyone. If you want to teach a person correctly, find an individual approach to him. Find the technique to which he is inclined, it will be the most useful, and this is what needs to be developed. That's what Bruce Lee said.

Friends, hello everyone. In this issue we look at a man who, unfortunately, is no longer among the living, but he is a man of Legend, probably even more than a Legend, it is difficult to imagine, his name and fate are shrouded in so many myths and mysticism that it is impossible to discuss or remember this man - impossible. He truly is the greatest martial artist of all time, as well as the star of the silver screen - Bruce Lee.

We will mainly analyze his training and diet (diet), in particular we will focus on diet. Because Bruce Lee's visual form is very impressive, because he did not have a drop of excess fat. And this, of course, can be achieved through correctly selected products (the most severe diet).

Bruce Lee was born on November 27, 1940 in San Francisco, height 171 cm and weight 61 kg. Died on July 20, 1973 at the age of 32.

At the end of his short but bright life (at 32 years old, it was at that time that he was at the peak of his physical shape, so he formed 6 nutritional postulates, which are stated below:

1.Avoid empty calories

What did Bruce Lee mean? By empty calories, he understood those foods that supply the human body with energy and calories, but in his opinion they do not provide any other benefit.

For example: Instead of these empty calories, Bruce Lee suggested taking confectionery products (flour products) from such familiar and basic products (wild rice, spaghetti from coarse varieties of wheat and the same oatmeal).

2.Eat less, but more often

A very familiar rule J, everyone has known it for a long time. But perhaps at the beginning of the 60-70s people did not yet understand this, although there are unique people who still do not understand: D, but it’s still nice to repeat once again that you need to divide the total food intake during the day into the maximum number of minimum meals food by volume.

3.Honey and ginseng

Bruce Lee prepared energy drinks for himself for filming and training, and many people, such as his partner (colleague) on the set of the film “Games of Death” - Karim Abdul-Jabbar, confirmed that Bruce Lee, in between filming processes, raised his energy level by drank a pre-prepared drink that contained honey with ginseng diluted in water, or, most often, tea with honey and ginseng diluted.

4. Balance your diet

What does this mean? What I meant was the same proportion between proteins, fats and carbohydrates, which I have mentioned many times in many issues.

In short this is:

Carbohydrates - 50-60%
proteins – 20-30%
fats – 10-20%

Many people, even now, do not understand that this is true, that it is vitally important to adhere to such proportions, because this proportion is optimal, first of all, for health, and only then for the rapid growth of muscle strength and mass.

Now it seems to us that all these postulates have long been known to everyone, but do not forget that Bruce Lee created them in the 60-70s, in those days there were no sources of information as there are now (the Internet, etc.) just think about it These postulates are not only true, at that time they were simply brilliant.

5.Drink tea

Bruce Lee, as a true man from the East, of course loved tea, used many varieties in his diet and diet.

6. Use sports supplements

At that time, I think there were practically no sports supplements. I heard everything about those times, people took brewer's yeast and mixed it with something, and mixed milk powder, in general, all sorts of outlandish cocktails (a kind of primitive cocktails), but in the case of Bruce Lee, he still lived in California, Some protein shakes, vitamins and minerals have already appeared. So, Bruce Lee, again, according to eyewitnesses at that time, said he prepared cocktails for himself according to special recipes and drank them 2 times a day. Bruce Lee was also convinced that he needed to take multivitamins and minerals. Those. you see that he relied on both regular healthy food and sports supplements. This is the sixth rule of his diet.

Bruce Lee workouts

Ogggo. Friends, I don't even know where to start. Here you can write an article like this, about 50 or even more characters. However, this man is a great martial artist, and we are here discussing training in bodybuilding, fitness, powerlifting and occasionally about martial arts.

But still, I will tell you a little from his biography about the training. I hope you find it INTERESTING 😀

Reading all kinds of literature, the secrets of Bruce Lee’s training are as follows::

Sparring
Alternation of training
Perpetual motion machine
Discipline

This is what I found in the wilds of the World Wide Web. Let's take a closer look at each point.

Bruce Lee spent a lot of time running. Justifying this by the fact that if a person cannot withstand such a load (running), then he has nothing to catch in sports. He himself ran about 6 times a week, for a quarter of an hour.

Bruce Lee used free sparring, of course in protective equipment, so as not to get injured. He began the training by practicing strikes on wooden dummies, bags filled with beans, and only then moved on to free sparring. He believed that this was the only way to perfect his fighting style.

Bruce Lee alternated his workouts, i.e. not only fought, but also developed flexibility, strength, and agility. Bruce Lee trained every day, alternating training on arms, legs, endurance, strength, paid special attention to flexibility, trained his abdominal muscles (abdominals), as well as endurance (without, cycling, jumping, etc.). Every day, for two hours a day, he perfected various strikes.

Bruce Lee never stopped, constantly trained both physically and intellectually, i.e. In addition to daily training for many hours, he also devoted himself to the self-development of his soul and mind.

Bruce Lee was disciplined. When the necessary equipment for full-fledged training was not at hand (for example, on a field trip, when he was far from his home), he practiced isometrics. (with isometric exercises), for example, he could spend quite a long time making efforts to move something stationary.

In general, this is where I end this issue. I hope you found it interesting. Until next time.

Best regards, administrator.

Hello dear readers. I think any of you have at least once watched a film with Bruce Lee and involuntarily admired his unique skill and body relief. And, probably, many asked themselves the question: could I do the same? Well, today I will talk about what Bruce Lee's training looked like and how the exercises he used are applicable to people with less physical fitness.

What do we know about this person? Interestingly, the moment of his birth - between 6 and 8 am on November 27, 1940 - fell on the Year of the Dragon and the Hour of the Dragon in accordance with the Chinese time system. So the popular nickname “Dragon” and the frequent appearance of this word in the titles of the actor’s films is not accidental. By the way, Bruce's childhood name was Li Xiaolong, that is, Li Little Dragon.

The parents were Chinese-born Lee Hoi Chen and Eurasian (half German) Grace Lee. Actually, the fact of birth took place in San Francisco, where at that moment his father, an actor-comedian of the Cantonese Chinese opera, was on tour with his wife.

As an actor, Bruce Lee began his career at the age of three months, he was cast as a baby girl in the film Golden Gate Girl. The next filming took place at the age of six, in the film “The Origin of Humanity.”

Despite his excellent body physics in adulthood, Lee was not very well developed physically as a child and teenager. On the contrary, he was considered frail and weak. He tried to train since childhood, but did not have much success. Active studies began only in 1954, but he became interested not in martial arts, but... in dancing. Yes, yes, he was an excellent cha-cha dancer. He even won the Hong Kong championship in this type of dance at the age of 18. At the same time, he took up boxing, which led to victory in competitions between schools. It was after this that he became interested in kung fu.

Martial arts classes began with the study of Tai Chi Chuan, then Bruce studied the style of Wing Chun (Wing Chun) with the famous Ip Man, mastered the techniques of judo, jiu-jitsu, and boxing. He mainly focused on fighting without weapons, although he also owned them. She worked especially impressively – and effectively – with nunchucks.

Bruce Lee's family and civil life developed quite smoothly. In 1959, he moved to the States to confirm his citizenship by birth. Lived in San Francisco, then in Seattle. He graduated from the Seattle Technical School and entered the University of Washington to study philosophy (not bad, right?) Faculty. It was there that he met his future wife, Linda. They got married in 1964, their son Brandon was born in 1965, and their daughter Shannon was born in 1969.

In the USA, the actor starred in TV series, but not in leading roles, and to ensure financial independence he gave private martial arts lessons. Among his students were many famous people, including basketball player Kerim-Abdul Jabar, with whom Lee later staged an interesting fight scene in the film “Game of Death.”

In 1971, Bruce moved to Hong Kong, where his career as an action star began. The shooting of the first film from the Golden Harvest studio, “Big Boss,” where the actor himself choreographed the action scenes, brought resounding success, cemented by the more budget-friendly “Fist of Fury” and “Return of the Dragon.” During his career, Bruce starred in 36 films, but only in the last five did he play the lead role.

The actor’s death occurred in 1973, he was 33 years old... This happened during the filming of the film “Tower of Death.” Under the new title “Game of Death,” this picture was completed five years after Lee’s death, where two doubles were used instead of him.

Achievements of Bruce Lee

As already mentioned, Lee’s main successes as an actor include fame and solid earnings. At the same time, his films, unique for those times, served to actively popularize martial arts. It was then that he gained a huge number of followers around the world.

The Jeet Kune Do system (“Way of the Leading Fist”), developed by Bruce Lee, based on the principle of outrunning the enemy’s blows, is still considered one of the most promising and effective schools of martial art.

As an athlete and fighter, Lee has achieved impressive success. Among his records:

Highest impact speed. It was not possible to film them at normal speed (24 frames per second); for battle scenes, technology with 32 frames per second was used. A movement of one meter was recorded in 0.02 seconds.
Unique endurance. He could hold his legs in a “corner” position on his hands for more than half an hour, and held a 34-kilogram weight in one hand for several seconds.
Incredible precision of movements - the fighter managed to catch thrown grains of rice with chopsticks;
The force of the impact - Lee punched his fingers through sealed steel cans of Cola.
Incomparable strength of the hands and forearms - the actor did push-ups on two fingers and pull-ups on the little finger of one hand.

How Bruce Lee trained

Nowadays the network contains a huge number of scattered and sometimes contradictory materials about the actor’s training methods. Having collected and analyzed the main sources, I identified the following main points.

It’s wrong to think that Bruce Lee only practiced martial arts. Bodybuilding, fitness, special nutrition systems - all this was in his career as an athlete.
At the peak of his form, the athlete worked out with a load equal to or greater than his own weight. At the same time, he preferred to practice bodybuilding at home rather than in the gym, having all the necessary arsenal of tools for pumping.
The training consisted of isometric and static exercises, aerobic exercise and professional training - striking techniques.
Even on rest days, Lee did not stop exercising, doing strength, speed, and flexibility exercises while reading and watching TV.

Training principles and methods: thoughtful and grueling

Personal notes and videos, photographs taken at different moments in Bruce Lee’s life, his communication with other athletes and journalists allow us to draw conclusions about what the principles and methods of his training were.

Absorb what is useful and cut off what is useless. These words are attributed to Lee, and although it is unknown whether he actually said this, his style of fighting and training fully supports the phrase. This style can be described as "instinctive".
Train to fight. Absolutely all of the actor’s activities were aimed at making the body the most perfect, ideally functioning mechanism. Strength training provided the necessary endurance and energy, aerobic training helped improve blood circulation and reaction, combat training helped to hone technique.
Training every day. As you know, Bruce Lee performed sets and repetitions for speed and flexibility every day, and worked with heavy iron at least three times a week.
Practicing strikes cannot be impersonal. Lee recommended imagining the most hated person in the place of the punching bag or exercise machine and putting emotions into every blow.
The training must be progressive.

What colleagues and eyewitnesses say

The person closest to the actor, his wife Linda, claimed that she was amazed by her husband’s ability to perform many activities at the same time (watch boxing, read in between interesting moments and simultaneously perform kicks and pump his biceps with a dumbbell). His fanatical attitude to training, daily “torture” of his body, bringing it to unimaginable perfection was the most significant part of their family life. She reported in her memoirs that Bruce devoted a lot of time to searching for information about new possibilities for improving the body and developing his own training systems, including meditation.

The US wrestling champion noted that Lee, who weighed 40 kilograms less than him, managed to defeat him in arm wrestling, and without visible strain. Bruce's incredible physical strength is also noted by his colleagues John Lewis and John Rea. Herb Jackson, who designed new simulators for him, reported that wooden products broke instantly, and only those reinforced with metal had a chance to last at least a few workouts.

Interestingly, Chuck Norris claimed that Lee did not use kicks above the waist, considering them impractical in martial arts. However, Norris managed to convince him of the effectiveness of such techniques on the screen, after which Lee mastered a full arsenal of high kicks within six months.

Technique and types of exercises

Reconstructing diary entries, eyewitness accounts and photos of Bruce Lee, experts came to the conclusion that he worked using the following physical training techniques:

Basic exercises in three sets with 15...30 approaches depending on the weight.
Alternate exercises, they change in each workout.
Constantly increasing load.

One of the programs for training the abs and leg muscles is shown in the photo.

The table below summarizes the basic principles of operation.

Workouts by day

Another photo from his personal notes:

Regarding combat techniques specifically, I managed to find the following program:

Punching on Monday/Wednesday/Friday - jab, cross, hook, cross from below, speed training, series. All exercises, except speed ones, are done on a pneumatic bag, punching bag, regular bag and wall pad; speed exercises are done only on a pneumatic bag in the gym or at home.
Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday kicks - side, side hooks, twist, heel, straight and back.

Records (not complete) for January 1968 report that the following training sessions took place per month: 15 for stretching and punching, 12 for speed, 121 and 129 for twisting (including lifting the torso) and hanging leg raises. , for legs (squats and others) 19, running (including sprints) - 10 hours.

Almost all the exercises were performed at home - sports equipment for this occupied the entire actor’s house, and there were even exercise machines in the garage. Eyewitnesses report that dumbbells and a barbell were available everywhere he spent at least half an hour - even in the office.

How Bruce Lee ate: a balanced diet

All his life, Lee preferred Chinese cuisine, preferring protein dishes, including soy-based ones. Relatives claimed that he avoided flour - he ate only out of politeness, when visiting. The emphasis on protein products was also expressed in a large number of protein shakes, the actor drank them every day: with powdered milk, eggs, bananas, peanut butter, sprouted wheat, brewer's yeast and lecithin. The composition was constantly changing.

Lee adhered to the principle of fractional nutrition - small portions five to six times a day. The diet was accompanied by energy drinks based on ginseng and honey, vitamins and nutritional supplements.

What supplements did Bruce Lee use?

According to his wife and other eyewitnesses, he actively experimented with all synthetic vitamins, mainly groups B, E, C, and constantly consumed rosehip syrup and bee pollen. As mentioned above, ginseng was on the menu every day in the form of drinks, like honey.

Conclusion

It's hard to stop, because there is so much information about Bruce Lee, and so much benefit can come from using his methods and principles of life to improve our own lives. I will be very glad if you find something new and useful for yourself in this article, share useful tips on social networks!

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Lee's guidance to those who wish to follow the doctrines of Jeet Kune Do boils down, with all the necessary clarity and yet somewhat vagueness, to this: “You must come to terms with the fact,” he wrote, “that there is 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 made to his designs. 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 as hard as you could, 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 remembers 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 prepared for physical exertion “has absolutely no business doing 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,
- At the end of the run, start 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 firmly believed in the need constant “processing” of fists and feet, ensuring that they became effective weapons - the knuckles 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 in my training I often used sheets of ordinary paper. He hung the sheet at the height he needed on a heavy rope or chain.
The goal of this training is to increase speed while achieving precision work. (full-body coordination for maximum power. A simple piece of paper helped him practice the whip-like motion of his punches, as well as his yoko kicks and kicks. The paper also helped him choose the right distance, but the main goal was to achieve maximum accuracy as well as explosive power His blows, which he struck on a special padded shield, looked very impressive. Any of his friends or students held this shield and moved. This allowed him to learn to deliver penetrating blows to a moving target. It was an amazing sight when Bruce himself held this one. shield, and one of his students would strike, 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 semi-shocked state.
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 envious: "Bruce put a twopence 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. A push 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 intercepted, but so gently that the guinea pig hardly felt 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 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, strong person who is not limited by any concepts or boundaries, he 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, used by Lee, it is obvious that The most beneficial were isometric exercises. is an exercise in which muscles are improved 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 order. 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 your style on the enemy, you adapt to his technique, analyzing its strengths and weaknesses, and then reuniting everything together, improving it if possible.”
There were aspects to his efforts to maintain perfect health that were completely unacceptable to others, for example, while giving credit to what he would eat, Lee believed, “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 long-distance runner. 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. Tilts and rotations
3. Lumbar arches (cat stretches)
4. Split jumps
5. Squats
6. Kicks to the head
Option 2
(Monday, Wednesday Friday) (forearm, hand, waist)
1. Torso rotation
2. Rotation, flexion, extension in the hands
3. Rotations in knee plaintiffs
4. Bend the torso to the sides
5. Twisting hands with weights
Option 3
(Tuesday Thursday Saturday)
1. Exercises to stretch the ligaments and muscles of the legs
2. Swing your legs to the sides
3. Jumping, pressing your hips to your body
4. Shoulder Rotations
5. Stretching the groin muscles and ligaments
6. Rotate your brushes
Option 4
(Tuesday Thursday Saturday)
1. Swing your legs
2. Twisting hands
3. Squats with simultaneous rotation
4. Leg raise with bent knee
5. Strengthening the abdominal muscles
6. Work to strengthen the hands (rotations with weights)
Training and Strength Development