Bruce Lee’s fitness regime and diet made him a pioneer among athletes and martial artists alike
Enter The Dragon star was ahead of his time, reaping benefits of strength and conditioning training 50 years ago
Lee also drank protein shakes – including a blend of entire raw hamburgers – long before they became commonplace for modern athletes
Nicolas Atkin
Published: 7:33pm, 20 Jun, 2019
Bruce Lee in 1971 film The Big Boss. Photo: Handout
Bruce Lee is known as the “Godfather of MMA” but he was also a pioneer when it came to his training regime and diet – which included drinking a blend of raw hamburger meat.
Biographer Matthew Polly’s Bruce Lee: A Life, which was released on paperback last month, details how Lee was the first martial artist to train like a modern athlete.
The Enter The Dragon star reaped the benefits of strength and conditioning training 50 years ago, long before it became a habit of professional sports stars to hit the gym to improve their game.
As with his jeet kune do fighting style, which consisted of taking bits and pieces from multiple styles and blending them into one, Lee took training methods from other athletic spheres and forged them all into his own unique regime.
Polly writes that Bruce Lee recognised that strength and conditioning training was crucial to becoming the ultimate fighter. Whereas athletes to that point would simply practise their own sport, Lee was the first to integrate outside gym work to his routine.
Accordingly, Lee employed training methods from boxing such as skipping and road running to improve his endurance. He would run four to five miles each morning and lifted weights three nights a week, installing a squat rack, bench press, dumbbells, grip machine and an isometric machine in his garage.
To alleviate the increased muscle aches, soreness and exhaustion brought on by such rigorous training, Lee used an idea he got from a fitness coach with NFL team the LA Rams, buying an electric muscle stimulator from James Garvey, founder of FlexTone, in 1972.
And 21 years later in 1993, the company sold muscle stimulators to Valencia Studios in California for the production of the Bruce Lee movie Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.
“Three minutes is like doing 200 push-ups,” said Lee, who discovered a unique way to use the technology to enhance muscle tone and definition, in tandem with his workouts.
Lee was also an early pioneer of using protein shakes, drinking a high protein blend several times a day which contained protein powder, iced water, powdered milk, eggs, eggshells, bananas, vegetable oil, peanut flour and chocolate ice cream.
He also used supplements long before they were commonplace for athletes, and even drank a blend of entire raw hamburgers.
This approach to diet and fitness helped Lee with his martial arts but just importantly it helped him maintain his film star physique and good looks.
Bruce Lee in Fist of Fury. Photo: Golden Harvest
Lee went with lighter weights and higher repetitions to maintain a lean and ripped look, instead of getting big like a bodybuilder.
According to Polly, Lee knew he needed to train hard to land leading roles in Hollywood, which was dominated by taller, muscle-bound white men.
“His passion may have been the martial arts but his profession was acting,” writes Polly.
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