Get Ripped Like Bruce Lee
By Adam Sinicki
Bruce Lee represents for many the pinacle of physical potential. Wimplings across the globe aspire to what they consider the ideal physique but know that they will never achieve those dizzying heights. They can admire from afar but are destined to remain at best, pathetic immitations. They should give up now. Give up now and die.
Or, they can read on, and learn the secrets of Bruce Lee's success so that they may become as ripped, as fast and maybe even as powerful as the great man himself. Read on wimplings. Read on.
Bruce Lee's stats:
Age: 24
Neck: 15 1/4
Chest: 44
Bicep: 14 1/2
Forearm: 12 1/2
Wrist: 6 1/2
Waist: 29 1/2
Thigh: 22 1/2
Calves: 13
Weight: 140
Height: 5'8
Feats of strength and speed:
Bruce's striking speed from 3 feet away was five hundredths of a second.
He could throw grains of rice up into the air and then catch them in mid-flight using chopsticks.
He could do 2 finger press ups
He could do 50 one armed chin ups
As a show of speed Bruce Lee would steal a coin from the hand of a participant before they could close it, for added effect he would exchange it for a different coin.
He could thrust his fingers through unopened cans of Coca-Cola (back when cans were made of steel, he'd find today's wimp-cans a piece of piss)
He could hold a 40kg barbell in one hand at arms length
Bruce could hold the V-sit position for 30 minutes

Bruce Lee's Training:
Bruce Lee was constantly experimenting with his workouts and that's partly what kept him at the top of his game. He was always investing in new workout equipment and reading up on new techniques. He had more books in his extensive library than your pathetic little brain can fathom. This meant that his muscles were constantly kept guessing and his workouts stayed interesting, varied and scientifically sound. In particular he was a supporter of electrically stimulating his muscles (particularly abs) and of 'static contraction', which involves pulling or pushing against an immovable force. What happens when an unstopable force meets an immovable object? Bruce Lee found out - you become ripped to shreds.
Possibly more important for Bruce Lee's overall physique was his regular CV. He was a great advocate of running as the best form of CV, but obviously spent most of his training doing martial arts and becoming kick ass. Martial arts kept him light, fast, toned and ripped. The style he orriginally practiced was 'Wing Chun' kung-fu, but he later developed his own style, 'Jeet Kune Do', or 'Way of the Intercepting Fist'. An uneducated fool like yourself will be unable to create an original martial art, but any striking style will provide similar results in terms of fitness.
Bruce Lee also trained his abs every single day. This isn't recommended by most bodybuilders who stress the importance of working individual body parts only once or twice a week to give them time to recover and avoid canabalising them (burning them for energy). Don't listen to them, they're wankers; listen to me, I'm amazing.
Lee's leg strength has been criticised and he squated only average amounts which makes his legs somewhat under developed when compared to the rest of his physique. This didn't stop them from delivering incredibly powerful side-kicks however and I certainly wouldn't want to be the one to point out the flaw.
How you can achieve similar results:
To be incredibly ripped you need to burn fat while building muscle. You can do this with high repetitions of lower weights; the perfect weight being that of your own body. For example, three sets of quick press ups repeated to failiure will both burn fat and tone almost every muscle in the body. I recommend sets of reps of fifty to one hundred press ups, which may seem ambitious for your weedy frame, but this is actually the idea so just go with it and don't ask questions. Perhaps you can only do fifty press ups in good form, for the second half then you allow your knees to touch the ground, or only perform half the movement, until you can't even do that any more. Now you are really pushing yourself to the (pathetic) limit. Other exercises that will achieve similar results include sets of sit ups, leg raises or pull ups all to failiure. To really push yourself (or pull yourself I suppose...) on the pull ups you can follow your sets immediately with a type of negative set by jumping up and lowering yourself slowly when you're too tired to complete an ordinary set (due to being a pussy). Again you've pushed yourself past your threshold and forced your body to burn those fat reserves and gather oxygen from wherever it can to fuel those muscles.
Obviously you can do more or less depending on ability but the idea is that you need to cheat slightly to complete the sets and that you keep the movements fast and light. A regular full body routine involving these exercises will give you lean muscle mass, high endurance, explosive speed and mastery of your body weight. This wasn't a technique that Bruce Lee particularly used but is an incredibly effective way of getting a lean and powerful in a short amount of time.
Like Bruce Lee you should compliment calisthenics with CV, either running (Bruce Lee alternated stints of faster and more relaxed running for better results) or shadow boxing. Shadow boxing or boxing with a punching bag are particularly good as they will further tone up your muscles in a similar way to the dragon (particularly lats and triceps which are crucial for striking moves). To make it a bit more interesting I swap shadow boxing for 'mirror boxing'. That way I get to look at myself more too.
To have visible abs you just need 10% or lower body fat which you can easily achieve with a high amount of CV. Mixing this then with the calisthenics will make them visible and rock hard.
Additionally Bruce Lee trained with weights in a conventional manner to build that massive chest and gain that raw power he used to crush his feeble oponents. The three big compound movements: bench, squat and deadlift, will provide you with that power in a short amount of time. If you can hack it.
Aim to consume a fairly low amount of calories and high amount of lean mass. I don't recommend a protein shake if you truly want to be as light as Bruce but high-quality protein such as fish or egg whites.
Bruce trained every single day and for hours on end, mere humans like you can't be expected to follow that example (and lets not forget he died pretty young). Below is a rough schedule that can be used to quickly gain the same sort of quick, powerful body that Bruce had. Only nowhere near as good.
A Suggested Workout Programme
Day 1:
30 mins shadow boxing
Full body calisthenics
Day 2:
20 mins jogging
Ab work
Day 3:
Weight training (big 3)
Ab work
Day 4:
Rest
Day 5:
20 mins shadow boxing
Full body calisthenics
Day 6:
20 mins jogging
Ab work
Day 7:
Weight training (big 3)
Ab work |