Bruce Lee’s Bodybuilding Workout and Diet

Bruce Lee created a martial art called “Jeet Kune Do” or the “Way of the Intercepting Fist”. However, as well known as he is in martial arts … he is highly regarded for his physical abilities and ripped physique. Bruce Lee’s body has become an icon of what an action star should look like today.

Let’s face it, audiences are no longer willing to accept an actor who dons a “muscle suit.” From Brad Pitt to Will Smith, it seems like every A-list Hollywood actor has been emulating Lee’s kind of muscular yet ripped physique. What made him great was a combination of his workouts and his diet program.

The Bruce Lee diet plan

Lee always ate a lot of high-fiber Chinese food.

Some foods high in fiber are:

* Fruits

* Vegetables,

* Breads,

* Beans

* Cereals

These foods are also rich in antioxidants and will help cleanse your body.

Like many bodybuilders today, I generally ate 6 times a day. This kept his blood sugar level stable and his metabolism blazed at a higher rate. He was also a big fan of keeping his body properly hydrated – generally, he drank 11 to 12 glasses of water per day.

Also, thanks to his bodybuilder friend … he learned the importance of maintaining a diet high in protein and low in carbohydrates. (Bruce Lee loved protein supplements and routinely had 1 to 2 protein shakes per day.)

The key to gaining muscle, in addition to exercising … is getting enough protein. Proteins constitute between 15 and 20% of our body weight. The bottom line is that protein is essential and is the raw material needed to build muscle and other body tissues.

Of course, in his day one of the most popular protein supplements was casein. Today, we know that whey protein can keep us in a state of positive nitrogen balance easier and faster than using just casein protein.

Bruce Lee’s training

His workouts were intense. Even Joe Weider … “The King of Bodybuilding” commented that Bruce Lee’s body was light years away from his time. Bruce incorporated many different components into his training program. Isometric exercises, free weights, yoga, and body weight, just to name a few. Bruce Lee gave up free weights early in his training. He felt that having big bodybuilding muscles was not an advantage for a martial artist. He focused more on what he called “Functional Strength.”

He realized early on that isometric exercise could provide him with superior strength gains. He also used an “Isometric Power Rack” for a time in his training program. If there is anything that defines Bruce Lee, it is his ability to think outside the box. His mentality of … “use what works and discard what does not work” has made him an innovator in many different fields.

For example, Bruce used every known isometric exercise device available in his training, including a device that was later called the Tensolator. Using isometric exercise equipment was a part of his training routine. And in fact, so have many practitioners of mixed martial arts today!