Bruce Lee burst onto the scene in 1959, here in the United States.

He wasn’t a great man when he came to Seattle. Weighing in at just under 130 lbs.

In fact, he was born a sickly boy with an undescended testicle and a female name. His mother… a very superstitious woman named him Li Jun Fan so that the evil spirits would not take him away. (In Chinese culture, male children are valued more highly than female children.)

With all this stacked against him, it’s almost impossible to believe that he would later become the proverbial cartoon character of Charles Atlas.

You know, they throw sand in his face, he starts training, working out hard and before you know it… he’s got muscles and he’s taking care of himself on the beach!

Lee spent his entire life turning his small, frail body into a large weapon, but he did more than that. You see, most people did not see the Chinese as physically strong people, in fact, they were perceived as domestic workers and day laborers. A small and weak race was the American perception of the Chinese at the time. Most martial arts were still unknown, including the Chinese style of boxing that Bruce was about to introduce to Westerners.

Kung fu was until then unknown to Americans. So when Bruce Lee burst onto the scene with these fast punches and high kicks, every nerd and underweight man had a new hero!

Many people wanted to learn kung fu, so the Bruce Lee training and training program began. Some of the most famous students of Bruce Lee were Steve McQueen, James Coburn and many others. Soon all Westerners were learning: Jeet Kune Do. This is the name that Bruce Lee gave to his martial art, translated means “the Way of the intercepting fist”.

He loved training and was constantly trying to improve Bruce Lee’s training program. He was what you could call a fitness fanatic. He engaged in running, lifting weights, using isometric exercises and electrical impulses to stimulate his muscles while he slept. (Bruce Lee even wanted to add speed and power while he slept.)

Bruce Lee was also very interested in proper nutrition and Bruce Lee’s diet consisted of taking vitamins, ginseng, royal jelly, steroids, and even liquid steaks (prior to the 1980s, steroids were legal in the United States).

Although Bruce Lee’s training was never intended to make him look like Arnold Schwarzenegger or even a professional bodybuilder, it’s easy to see that it was effective in building ripped musculature that most people would love to have.

Unfortunately Bruce Lee died at the age of 32 in strange and controversial circumstances at his lover’s house from a supposed cerebral edema. The autopsy revealed that the cause of death was a strange reaction to a prescription pain reliever called Equagesic. What really stands out about Bruce Lee’s training and coaching is that through all of his many obstacles, he was still able to overcome them and achieve his goal of becoming a martial arts legend and movie star.