It’s interesting to know how the world’s most famous martial artist trained. It is always a interesting topic of conversation and it is certainly funny and motivating for an athlete when they happen to do some of Lee’s exercises. Whether you would like to use any of the information or not, it makes an interesting read.

The information that put this schedule together comes from his old friends and was compiled by writer John Little.

Bruce Lee collected thousands of books on martial arts and philosophy. He also ordered bodybuilding courses out of the magazines and tested their claims and theories. He visited second-hand bookstores and bought books on bodybuilding and strength training. An example is a book written by Eugene Sandow ‘Strength & How to Obtain It ‘, originally published in 1897.

After much research, and with the help of two bodybuilders he developed a basic three-day-per-week bodybuilding program. He stuck to it from 1965 till 1970.

The every-other-day workout allowed for recovery to take place. His workouts fell on days when he wasn’t engaged in either endurance-enhancing or overly strenuous martial art training. His bodyweight grew from 130 pounds to just over 165 pounds. He wasn’t pleased with the added mass. He changed his training regime and lost the weight again. He changed it aiming for function. His routine incorporated stretching for flexibility, weight training for strength and cardiovascular activity for his respiratory system.

Performed on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Exercise Sets Repetitions

Clean & Press 2 X 8

Squats 2 X 12

Pullovers 2 X 8

Bench Presses 2 X 6

Good Mornings 2 X 8

Barbell Curls 2 X 8

Clean & Press: Olympic barbell. Squat down, clean the barbell to chest and stand up, thrust the barbell to arms length overhead, lower the barbell back to the top of chest

Squats: Resting a barbell across shoulders, feet shoulder-width apart, slowly ascend to a full squat position, return using the strength of hips, glutes, hamstrings, calves and quadriceps to the starting position

Pullovers: lying down on back, shoulder-width grip on a barbell, press out to full extension above chest, lower the barbell behind head until it touches the floor ever so slightly, slowly reverse

Bench Press: Lying down upon a flat bench, shoulder-width grip on an Olympic barbell, press the weight off the support pins to arms length above chest, lower the barbell to chest, press it back up to the fully-locked out position.

Good Mornings: Caution: In early 1970 Bruce Lee did 135 pounds (his bodyweight) without a proper warm up. He later found out that he had damaged the fourth sacral nerve of his lower back.

Placing a barbell across shoulders, feet three inches apart , bend over from the waist keeping hands on the barbell at all times, bend over until back at a 90 degree angle to hips, return to the upright position.

Barbell Curls: Shoulder-width grip on the barbell with palms facing forwards, slight bend knees, contract biceps and curl the barbell up to level with upper pecs, slowly lower the barbell back to the starting position.

Shadow boxing with weights: Punch for 12 series in a row, 100 punches per series, using a pyramid system of 1,2,3,5,7 and 10-pound weights, reverse the pyramid and go 10, 7, 5, 3, 2, 1 and finally "zero" weight.

Forearm exercise: George Lee (friend) built him several ‘hand gripping’ machines

Wrist curls: Wrist curls with dumbbells

Zottman curl: Curl the weight up one side of your body and then twist it and bring it down on the other side.

Sit-ups

Crunches

Roman Chair movements

Leg Raises

V-ups

If you would like to know more: All the notes Bruce Lee made and all his training material has been presented in a book entitled ‘The Art of Expressing The Human Body’ (Tuttle Publishing, Boston).