According to assorted sources on the internet, a 1996 description in Iron Man Magazine revealed Bruce Lee's workout. In expanding to his cardio and karate workouts, Lee lifted weights three times a week and performed the following routine:
clean and presses 2 x 8
Time Magazine
squats 2 x 12
barbell pullovers 2 x 8
bench presses 2 x 6
good mornings 2 x 8
barbell curls 2 x 8
Unfortunately, he injured his back doing good mornings, which nearly ruined his career. Otherwise, his weight training was prosperous in that it is credited with helping him add 30 pounds of solid muscle to his relatively small frame.
Although Lee is the most noted martial artist ever, it may be that the strongest was a man named Masutatsu Oyama. Therefore, it will be keen to variation Lee's workout with Oyama's.
The Karate Bull-Fighter
Oyama was one of the first to bring Karate to America and founder of the Kyokushin style of Karate. His 1958 excellent "What is Karate?" was one of the first books on the subject written in English, and designed to make the subject accessible to westerners.
Oyama initially became noted with stunts such as bull-fighting Karate-style. Unlike Mexican bull-fighters, he would surely wrestle the bull to the ground and break off one of its horns. (He wasn't too popular with animal rights activists in Tokyo.)
Oyama's drive Training
According to Oyama's 1958 book, drive and speed are more important than skill for Karate, and speed more important than strength. Also, he said it was very important to convention jumping.
Here are some recommendations he gives in "What is Karate?" (He doesn't give an exact workout.)
Running - 4km per day
Rope-skipping - 20 minutes per day
Dumbell arm practice (shoulder press?) - 200 times
Dips - 100 times
Push ups (with hands in fist) - 300 times
Inclined push ups - 100 times
Jumping side kick over 4 foot vaulting horse
Inclined dumbell bench press
Exercises requiring a partner:
Hitting bag with upper elbow and side of elbow - 200 times each
Practicing jumping kick with bag
Exercises for neck (with partner)
Leg practice (squat with partner on back)
Back and Abdomen exercises with partner
Elsewhere in the book, Oyama said that he would bench press 175 pounds 500 times a day.
Then there are karate-specific exercises such as straw stunning and exercises that are exact to board and stone breaking abilities. All this was in expanding to practicing forms, sparring, etc.
Comparing Lee and Oyama
Now, what strikes me as the important variation in the middle of Lee's and Oyama's workout styles is volume. Lee's weight training habit is relatively brief, and he avoided lifting on days of heavy martial arts training.
While Lee might do an practice for 2 sets of 8 reps (which is fairly typical), Oyama would do it for hundreds of reps. Clearly, Oyama's is a more time-consuming approach that would want a lot of dedication.
If you look at pictures of these men, they have quite separate builds. For Lee, his training goal was apparently to add bulk. Before the weight training, he weighed only 135 pounds, and he added 30 pounds of solid muscle.
Oyama, on the other hand, was obviously a stockier fellow, and talks in his book about losing weight during periods of intense training. Judging from pictures of him with other people, I would say that he was probably slightly taller than Lee (who was 5' 8"). Although Oyama was of mean height, he doesn't look like a small guy when standing next to American expert wrestlers, boxers, and strongmen.
Possible Conclusions
The point is not to assess them as saying one was good than the other. I do wonder what sway their training style had on the way they looked and how much was just genetic.
At any rate, if Oyama struggled to keep his weight down, it sounds like high volume training helped him to achieve that. Lee, on the other hand, seems to have been simply lean and wanted the weight training to bulk up (probably to look good on camera). Too much volume might be counter-productive to that goal.
So, maybe the episode in this is that if you want to lose weight while simultaneously getting stronger, it might be worth inspecting an old-fashioned high volume workout routine, assuming you can make that kind of dedication. On the other hand, if your goal is to look like Bruce Lee... Well, all I can say is "good luck"!
Martial Arts force Training
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