After almost losing a fight, Bruce Lee sat down breathless. At that time he realized that his cardio training was not up to Bruce Lee’s standard of training.
After that fight, he concluded that aerobic or cardiovascular training to be “real world power”. Today, most mixed martial arts fighters have realized the importance of proper cardiovascular training.
Tito Ortiz, a well-known Ultimate Fighting Champion, has gone so far as to train at Oscar De La Hoya’s training camp in Big Bear Lake. And he recently went even further by purchasing the property for $2.1 million.
Why is this important?
Due to the altitude at Big Bear Lake, it is an ideal place to train for any event. Running at high altitudes is a secret to building stamina for any fight. It is well known that Bruce Lee preferred running to any other type of endurance exercise.
He ran every day rain or shine determined to maintain his fighting edge.
Bruce Lee’s training applied the same principle of progressive resistance to cardiovascular training as it did to resistance training. Bruce felt that all endurance-related activities should be done progressively. He even went so far as to incorporate weight training into his running form to make the workout even more demanding.
This type of training was the beginning of what is now known as powerwalking or heavy hand exercises, where the individual performed aerobic exercise but with weights in hand or using a weighted vest to increase the difficulty in performing cardiovascular exercise.
One of the easiest ways to build your fighting stamina in Bruce Lee training was by taking steps.
Essentially what you do is get up and down from a chair to the floor and back again. The chair should be approximately 17 inches high for men and 14 inches for women.
To correctly execute this exercise, you need to lead on the left foot for a minute, then switch to the right foot for another minute, then stop stretching a bit, take a couple of deep breaths.
Then you would perform an arm exercise or an abdominal exercise.
Repeat the routine again with the meat: As you build endurance and strength, increase the reps as the weeks go by until you can finally perform it for a full 30 minutes.
Jogging: a favorite exercise of Bruce Lee
Running could be called Bruce Lee’s passion. He loved jogging early in the morning and Lee always carried a pair of running shoes with him to ensure he never missed a day of jogging.
Bruce Lee’s training focused on jogging for various reasons.
He felt that jogging put very little stress on the body and was an exercise that required no equipment and that anyone could do.
In Bruce Lee’s training he explained all the reasons why you should run and exactly how to do it. In future articles I will explain these components.