Bruce Lee: Encyclopedia II - Bruce Lee - Bruce Lee's Feats

Bruce Lee - Bruce Lee's Feats

Here are some of Bruce Lee's outstanding real life feats. All of this information is taken from various documentaries and magazines.

• Bruce Lee's striking speed from 2 feet away was five hundredths of a second.^[7]
• Bruce Lee could throw grains of rice up into the air and then catch them in mid-flight using chopsticks.^[8]
• Bruce did push ups using only 2 fingers.
• Bruce could thrust his fingers through unopened cans of Coca-Cola. (This was when soft drinks cans were made of steel much thicker than today's aluminium cans.)
• Bruce was able to explode 150lb bags with a simple sidekick.^[9]
• Bruce would ride for 45 minutes (10 Miles) on a stationary bike, when he'd finished, a huge pool of sweat was beneath him.^[10]
• Bruce once caved in a protective headgear made from heavy steel rods, rods that had previously withstood several blows from a sledgehammer.
• Bruce's last movie Enter the Dragon was made for a modest $600,000 in 1973. To date, Enter the Dragon has grossed over $300,000,000.^[11]

Bruce Lee - Quotes From Bruce Lee's Friends about his Feats

These are some quotes from Bruce Lee's closest friends about his feats of strength: ^[12]

• Chuck Norris - "Lee, pound for pound, might well have been one of the strongest men in the world, and certainly one of the quickest".

• Dan Inosanto
  • "Bruce was only interested in strength that he could readily convert to power. I remember once Bruce and I were walking along the beach in Santa Monica. All of a sudden this huge bodybuilder came walking by, and I said to Bruce "Man, look at the arms on that guy" I'll never forget his reaction, he said "Yeah, he's big, but is he powerful???".
  • "Bruce had tremendous strength in holding a weight out horizontally in a standing position. I know because I've seen it. He'd take a 125lb barbell and hold it straight out".

• Doug Palmer - "Bruce was like the Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali in his prime, somebody who stood above everyone else. It's not that the other martial artists weren't good. It's just that this guy was great".

• Herb Jackson
  • "Bruce was interested in becoming as strong as possible".
  • "The biggest problem in designing equipment for Bruce was that he'd go through it so damn fast. I had to reinforce his wooden dummy with automobile parts so he could train on it without breaking it. I had started to build him a mobile dummy that could actually attack and retreat to better simulate "Live" combat, sadly Bruce died before the machine was built. It would have been strung up by big high-tension cables that I was going to connect between two posts, one on either side of his backyard. The reason for the machine was simply because no one could stand up to his full force punches and kicks, Bruce's strength and skill had evolved to point where he had to fight machines.".
  • "He never trained in a gym, he thought he could concentrate better at home, so he worked out on his patio. He had a small weight set, something like a standard 100lb cast-iron set. In addition, he had a 310lb Olympic barbell set, a bench press and some dumbbells, both solid and adjustable".
  • "Bruce used to beat all other comers at this type of wrist wrestling and even joked that he wanted to be world champion at it".

• Jesse Glover
  • "When he could do push ups on his thumbs and push ups with 250lbs on his back, he moved on to other exercises".
  • "The power that Lee was capable of instantly generating was absolutely frightening to his fellow martial artists, especially his sparring partners, and his speed was equally intimidating. We timed him with an electric timer once, and Bruce's quickest movements were around five hundredths of a second, his slowest were around eight hundredths. This was punching from a relaxed position with his hands down at his sides from a distance between 18-24 inches. Not only was he amazingly quick, but he could read you too. He could pick up on small subtle things that you were getting ready to do and then he'd just shut you down".
  • "Bruce was gravitating more and more toward weight training as he would use the weighted wall pulleys and do series upon series with them. He'd also grab one of the old rusty barbells that littered the floor at the YMCA and would roll it up and down his forearms, which is no small feat when you consider that the barbell weighed 70lbs".

• Joe Lewis - "Bruce was incredibly strong for his size. He could take a 75lb barbell and from a standing position with the barbell held flush against his chest, he could slowly stick his arms out, lock them and hold the barbell there for 20 seconds, that's pretty damn tough for a guy who at the time only weighed 138lbs. I know 200lb weight lifters who can't do that."

• Mito Uhera - "Bruce always felt that if your stomach wasn't developed, then you had no business doing any hard sparring".

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Bruce Lee's Feats", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki