besides doing crunches/situps and jogging

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re martial arts training: oh weird that is, now i quote thai training camps that use a ring for sparring and heavy bags for training as their only equipment - except weights for the neck for a specific strength drill for the muay thai clinch. no bodyweight stuff, no strength training per se, just training, sparring and bimonthly (or more) fighting.

also, the training goals for strongmen of all kinds and bodybuilders are not the same. as a bodybuilder, you will focus on tricking your muscles into hypertrophy, end of story. there will be limited strength gains, but nothing compared to a pure strength workout. strength training, on the other hand, focusses on activating a higher percentage of muscle fibers.
in practise, you wont have one effect without the other, but just what you are heading for will dictate your training routines, as a hypertrophy-specific training wont get you as much strength as a strength workout while the latter wont give you the amount of muscle mass.

bruce lee was indeed very defined, but he was not one to make slow walking sessions. he advocated running with wind sprints - high intensity intervals, basically.

and finally, re fat loss - read:
http://www.dragondoor.com/articler/mode3/392/ <- article that explains the whole thing in laymans terms
http://www.exrx.net/FatLoss/HIITvsET.html <- study results.

dumbed down to one statement:
high intensive interval training rids the body of nine times more fat per workout session calory than long slow distance training while preserving muscle.
thank you, discussion end.

I know the difference between strongmen and bodybuilders, but the difference isn't that big. Bodybuilders are (almost) equally strong as strongmen, and strongmen who are ripped of fat will look like bodybuilders. Pound for pound, bodybuilders are stronger than strongmen. Take for instance Franco Columbu. He benchpressed 238 kg in his prime, while he was only 95 kg himself.

Some strongmen (eg. Svend Karlsen) are also former bodybuilders (and vice verca).

Here are some strongmen that are ripped of fat:









Yes, but back then they didn't know as much about fatloss as they do today. Besides, Bruce Lee used steroids.



Treningsforum.no"Noen grunnleggende prinsipper (tatt fra egne erfaringer)
1: Det første du gjør når du skal i gang med en diett, er å finne ut hvor mye kalorier du gjennomsnittlig spiser i løpet en dag. Det er da viktig å ikke jukse, men å være totalt enig med deg selv. Den eneste du lurer ved å ”lure unna” den lille sjokoladen, er nettopp deg selv.
2: Når du så har funnet ut hvor mye du spiser, er det tid for å sette opp en diett. Det er viktig å få hjelp til dette fra profesjonelle, og ikke bare sette i gang med noe man tror er riktig selv, det kan gi uønskede effekter. Folk som kan gi gode råd er ernæringsfysiologer, treningsterapeuter og ellers mennesker som selv har gjort dette flere ganger.
3: Å oppretthold et proteininntak på 2-3 gram pr kilo kroppsvekt er ikke uvanlig, samtidig bør du passe på å ikke gå for lavt på kaloriene helt i startfasen.
4: Det er viktig å tenke over om du trenger noen form for kosttilskudd under dietten. Det kan være vanskelig å få i seg tilstrekkelig med vitaminer, mineraler og proteiner gjennom en diett. Slike tilskudd er svært vanlig under strenge dietter, og de fleste legger da vekt på proteinpulver, vitaminer, mineraler, olje og glutamin.
5: Gå tur, i raskt tempo, på 45-60 minutter om morgenen før frokost. Det kan være greit å ta litt olje, glutamin og litt sterk kaffe før du går.
6: Man begynner gjerne dietten med å kutte ned det daglige kaloriinntaket med 10-20%.
7: Spis minimum hver tredje time, 6 til 8 måltider om dagen. Måltidene skal være små, med en fornuftig fordeling av proteiner, karbohydrater og fett. 35/50/15 er en grei fordeling, men det er også her greit å tilpasse den enkeltes behov.
8: Spisedag maksimum 1 gang i uken. Om du har mye ekstra fett på kroppen, kan det være greit å holde spisedagene til et minimum, og i perioder kutte dem helt.
9: Drikk gjerne over 5 liter veske om dagen. Da unngår du den verste sultefølelsen, og får samtidig skylt ut avfallstoffer fra kroppen.
10: Optimal nedgang er 0,5-1 kilo i uken. Mister du mer enn dette, er det fare for at noe av nedgangen skyldes at du også mister muskler. Den første uken er det imidlertid ikke uvanlig å gå ned 2-3 kilo pga vann og avfallsstoffer i kroppen som forsvinner."

I'll translate it to english if you ask. Treningsforum.no is a message board used by professional athletes in Norway.

you know, im quite tired of you ignoring points.

so therefore i ask for:

sources that refute hypertrophy without notable strength gain and provide solid proof that bodybuilding makes "pound for pound stronger than strongmen" (which i believe is major b.s. - where pound for pound stregth is needed is olympic weightlifting - the athletes have to stay in their weight class and lift largest possible loads. they arent bodybuilders by any stretch)

sources that bruce lee used anything except his known religious usage of supplements.
also, id be interested to know why bruce lee proposed and worked with a technique that is backed up by current scientific research and obviously put it to magnificient effect on his own body.

scientific research backing up your thesis on higher fat loss through low intensity aerobic workout. the second link i posted contains scientific reference pro hiit: Trembblay A, Simoneau JA, Bouchard C. (1994). Impact of Exercise Intensity on Body Fatness and Skeletal Muscle Metablism, Metabolism. 43(7): 814-818. - see linked table for results.

Haven't ignored any of your points. Unfortunately for you, the bodybuilders know best how to loose fat without loosing too much muscle mass.



I have never seen any person with large muscles who wasn't strong. Some people look like they're extremely muscular when they're not strong, but they're big because of Synthol, not muscle mass. A lot of strongmen with a fast metabolism could pass as bodybuilders if they lost a small amount of fat. Mariusz Pudzianowski has bigger biceps than Arnold had in his prime--depsite the fact that the guy has a very low amount of bodyfat.

Very few powerlifters or strongmen are able to match Franco Columbu or Frank Zane's weight/strength ratio--with people like Scott Mendelson being an exeption rather than a rule. To match their strength pound for pound, you'll have to benchpress 2.5 times your own bodyweight.



The fact that Bruce Lee went from 90 kg (that's as much as Sylvester Stallone during Rocky IV, despite the fact that Lee was 7 cm shorter) to 58 kg in a few weeks is a proof that he used steroids. Bruce Lee died at age 33. It's very rare that a clean athlete dies this early.

For more info:

http://www.chasingthefrog.com/reelfaces/brucelee.php



The fact that sprinters do a lot of workout sessions on muscle mass on their entire body while using steroids and still don't look like Arnold is a living proof that anaerobic workout kills muscle mass. Passing the drug tests isn't hard at all; the brother of a friend of mine has told a lot of people about his Dianabol and Deca usage. This didn't stop him from winning the 3. place in the norwegian bodybuilding championship for his age group.

I have no english articles to back up my point (because I don't know the english word for the method I just mentioned), but I know a lot of articles written by professionals in Norway that can.

Sorry I've bitten my tongue for long enough! Bruce Lee was NEVER EVER 90KG!! !! Show me the proof.

Could we get this moved into it's own thread? I feel sorry for the threadstarter as this has been completely hijacked now

In his prime he was 75 kg (keep in mind that he has a very low body fat level), but you won't loose 17 kg of muscle mass either unless you suddenly stop taking steroids. Just to prove my earlier point:

@Wikipedia:

"Training is one of the most neglected phases of athletics. Too much time is given to the development of skill and too little to the development of the individual for participation." "JKD, ultimately is not a matter of petty techniques but of highly developed spirituality and physique.[36]

The weight training program that Lee used during a stay in Hong Kong in 1965 at only 24 years old placed heavy emphasis on his arms. At that time he could perform bicep curls at a weight of 70 to 80lbs for three sets of eight repetitions, along with other forms of exercises, such as squats, push-ups, reverse curls, concentration curls, French presses, and both wrist curls and reverse wrist curls. [37] The repetitions he performed were 6 to 12 reps (at the time). While this method of training targeted his fast and slow twitch muscles, it later resulted in weight gain or muscle mass, placing Bruce a little over 160 lbs. Lee was documented as having well over 2,500 books in his own personal library, and eventually concluded that "A stronger muscle, is a bigger muscle", a conclusion he later disputed. However, Bruce forever experimented with his training routines to maximize his physical abilities. He employed many different routines and exercises including skipping, which effectively served his training and bodybuilding purposes.[38]"

quite what i say all the time.

re bruce lee/steroids: no, weight changes are not a proof. i lost one kilogram a day for a bit more than one week straight - without taking anything.
and having one guy, on top of that him being the second husband of linda, write it in a book, AFTER parting ways with linda... thats not exactly something you could put up to discussion as fact, in face of the truckloads of research back and forth that was put into lees life, training and death. why have i never heard people who were close to bruce say anything about it? dan inosanto for example?

re points ignoring/fat loss technique:
see, there is quite solid camparative evidence concerning hiit and aerobic workout - yet the numbers are plainly ignored and instead, youi keep preaching things without supplying anything to support your point.
"bodybuilders know best" is an argument of the type "its the word of god"
"you not knowing" people who are big but not strong isnt exactly proof either. im still interested in research backing up that hypertrophy directly relates to strength.
on the topic of 2.5 times bodyweight bench press, hear one louie simmons of westside barbell, an exclusively powerlifting club: "As of October 1999, we have 8 men with a 600 or more bench, the biggest triple body weight bench (683 at 227), a 657 world record at 220, a 701 world record at 238, and a 728 world record at 275."
also, repeatedly claiming that sprinters and boxers are on steroids, just to hold your little world together doesnt make it more true. solid proof or leave it alone. also, nor sprinters neither boxers train for muscle mass. plain old b.s. muscle mass makes sprinters need to carry more load and makes boxers not meet their weight class.
they train for strength, not muscle mass.

I know that muscle mass is not proportional to strength, but a big muscle is a strong muscle, and vice verca. It's not under any circumstances possible to look like eg. Ronnie Coleman and be a wimp. Nor is it possible to benchpress 250 kg and not be big.



This can easily be explained. You can gain a maximum of 1 kg with fat a week. If you eat more than that, the food is stored in the guts for later usage and not as fat (several kilos with half digested food was found in Elvis' guts after he died). This is fairly easy to lose with cardio sessions. Bruce Lee was ripped of fat when he weighted 75 kg. So he must have lost muscle mass, thus he took steroids.



Would you tell anyone if you took steroids?



Why do you think bodybuilders gain a lot of fat off-season (many, such as Greg Kovacs and Lee Priest are even obese). Have you ever seen a large bodybulder who wasn't strong? If he's big without being strong, it's Synthol, not muscle mass. Period. The muscles of a powerlifter is slightly more efficient than those of a bodybuilder (because the nerves are better developed), but that's not much.

Here's a picture of Ronnie Coleman legpressing more than a metric ton eight times. Ronnie Coleman is an 8 time Mr. Olympia champion (a record he only shares with Lee Haney).



I've met a lot of strong bodybuilders, but I've never met a weak one.



Like I said: The muscles of powerlifters is slightly more efficient than those of a bodybuilder, making them slightly stronger with roughly the same mass. According to most charts, it takes more from a 120 kg person to benchpress 240 kg than a 100 kg person to benchpress 200 kg.



Sprinters train strength to prevent muscle loss. Why do you think sprinters often have broad shoulders and big arms? Athletes are caught taking steroids all the time. World class sprinters aren't usually caught because they take HGH + insuling, which (unlike good old russian 'roids) can't be traced.

You are all over the place. 90kg is 198lbs. Bruce at his very heaviest was 165lbs. He was only 5'7" with a small bone structure if he was ever 90kg he would have looked like the incredible hulk. That is just ridiculous. Where is this 17kg of muscle loss coming from? He stopped doing bodybuilding training and dropped from 165lb to about 140lb. That is 11.5kg or 25lb of weight loss, not 17kg or 37lbs as you claim. I personally lost 13lbs just stopping weight training so I don't think losing 25lbs is that inconcievable from the obssessive way Lee trained. Maybe he was doing steroids but that is not proof, that is circumstantial and could be the result of myriad other factors. Sorry but your exaggerated claims are in no way proof of Bruce Lee using steroids!

Sprinters train strength to run faster! Is that so incredible to believe? For a sprinter strength to weight ratio is paramount. You don't think a sprinter wouldn't want to be as small as possible but as strong as possible at the same time?

I know that they train strength in their legs to run faster, but many of them also have impressive upper bodies (while the only upper body muscles making a significant difference in running is the abs). Like I've mentioned a lot of times before: They do heavy workout sessions on their upper body to PREVENT muscle loss. Combined with steroid usage this makes most of them capable of benchpressing more than 150 kg.

big/strong relationship:
of course, if you aim to develop huge muscles (the goal being huge) - youll move some iron in the process and that will as a side effect slightly increase your stregth. but as long as you're set on your bodybuilding goal, youll mainly train hypertrophy. conversely, look pavel tsatsouline: hes wiry, but i wouldnt want to catch him on a bad mood swing. you absolutely can, though carefully, keep getting stronger with minimal bulk gain.
powerlifters train just the other wa round than bodybuilders: strength is their primary goal, what bulk they gather on the way is a side effect.
and i wouldnt exactly call the difference between 2.5x bodyweight that you claimed for bodybuilders to 3x bodyweight that is just what happens at simmons westside barbell "slightly more effective" - what do you think strength is? strength is how many fibers are activated in a motor unit - its solely a neuromuscular factor.

finally, one last time, re anaerobic training: what, in the name of whatever, do you think are you training when you bench press? when you do plyo pushups? when you leg press? thats all exclusively anaerobic training. depending on reps and load, you're either using atp/phosphocreatine as energy source or partial breakdown of glycosis. and what for? for gaining strength and/or bulking up. when you run high intensity intervals, you're basically doing the leg equivalent of plyo pushups for as many seconds as you can keep pace (as many reps as you can do) for as many intervals as you choose to (as many sets that you choose) with rest periods inbetween.
dont you slowly come to realize your folly?
its the aerobic pathway that feeds on fats and protein, but neither of the anaerobic ones. (and, as is quite reasonable: excessive stimulation of output in the force range the aerobic pathway can provide will eventually lead to increased protein burning as well as muscle reduction to the intensity of the aerobic stimulus - but that needs excessive stimuli and applies to all kinds of energy recruitment in an aerobic manner: jogging and lower. hence, you can claim that an aerobic workout like walking or jogging burns the most fat, the numbers are clear that the effect high intensity interval training has on your metabolism burns body fat throughout the day after you finished your workout)

re my 1kg/DAY (not week) rate: i had extreme diarrhea and lost truckloads of water. point being: you cant judge what a person did take or not take from looking at single numbers like weight change over time.

re telling steroid usage: well, as long as my goal is not sport competition, i can take pretty much whatever i want - its a means to an end. however, neither told he anyone, but only one guy, who id say was a bit too much involved emotionally to be taken for full without questioning, wriote it in his book. if numbers were as clear as you claimed, there were many more sources claiming it or at least considering the possibility. however, for as much as bruce lees life and death is researched up and down, nobody does.

re strong bodybuilders: well, i quite repeatedly see serious athletes outlevelling bodybuilders at pretty much everything. every bodybuilder will inevitably fail the test against an olympic weightlifter, who is forced to get maximum strength out of a given weight class.

re doping traceability: if its known, its traceable. the crux is that nowadays, you can chemically bond, for example, growth hormones to some other substance - it will have the growth hormone effect but wont trigger the test for the pure hormone. since combination possibilities are quite endless, doping agencies are always a step behind - they basically need to rely on an insider blowing the cover on the newest fad. once a substance is known (or an indicator), it can be tested.

You'll get even stronger with a higher bulk gain.



My point exactly.



Very few powerlifters can benchpress 3 times their own weight. Lou Ferrigno in his prime is said to have benchpressed 285 kg twice, that's 15 kg more than Svend Karlsen (a man who earlier won the world championship in strongman), and not even 40 kg from the world record. Ronnie Coleman is also capable of both legpressing and deadlifting more than most world class powerlifters in his weight class.

How many 90 kg powerlifters in the 70's were capable of benchpressing more than Franco Columbu?



Most bodybuilders work out with 3-5 sets and 6-10 reps. This builds muscle, allthough if you only train benchpress, it will in theory kill muscle mass other places on the body. No bodybuilders today use pushups as more than warmup. People who do a lot of pushups will increase more in endurance than strength.



If you do anaerobic workouts that protein will disapear first and you'll lose muscle mass at the same time as you loose fat. I know that an anaerobic workout burns more fat, but it also burns more muscle, and thus it's not worth it.



Haven't heard anything about Bruce Lee having diarrhea. As far as I'm concerned, you didn't loose 17 kg of muscle mass and water either.



A lot of serious sources states that Bruce Lee took steroids. I'll list them if you don't believe me.



I've never seen a boxer, sprinter or martial artist benchpressing, squating or deadlifting more than a bodybuilder. Allthough bodybuilders doesn't have much endurance, they're always strong.



Like I said: Modern athletes mix the HGH with insulin. A lot of former users of modern doping have spoken against it, but it doesn't affect that number of people who are caught to a large degree.

How do you know what his training regimme, diet and all those other relevant factors at the time. An indication is not proof and I don't believe it was that strong.

Well you don't know much about the mechanics of sprinting. The legs act in direct opposition to the arms which are driven by the upper body. Hence you need a strong powerful upper body as much as you need a strong lower body. Don't believe it? Try sprinting with your arms fixed to your sides. You won't go very fast! So you think that sprinters have big upper bodies just because they train it to prevent muscle loss? Why do they worry about muscle loss of the upper body? They train the upper body because the need that strength there too. If you look at speed skaters who have massively developed legs they don't have nearly so much upper body muscle proportionately. So why would they not need upper body muscle but sprinters do. Your reasoning doesn't make sense in explaining this obvious difference.

Tank Abott is probably the worse example of an MMA fighter you can pick. He has virtually no skill level whatsoever and is known as a brawler. He gets beaten regularly because he didn't ever get any better. Yes he is incredibly or was strong but he is notorious for having no cardio.

Mariusz Pudzianowski is another very bad example to pick. He may well use steroids but he trains by means of high intensity anaerobic interval training not low intensity stuff. That is why he has tremendous anaerobic fitness and is called the dominator in strongman circles.

Most powerlifters these days have reaslised the importance of being fit for your event. They use high intensity conditioning like sled dragging and sledgehammer work. This is highly anaerobic stuff and they certainly need to preserve muscle but they need to be fit too. Check out any top powerlifters training, look up Westside Barbell if you need proof.

That's crap about sprinters not being as strong as bodybuilders. Sprinters for their size are tremendously strong in fact pound for pound they are stronger. Take Ben Johnson he squatted 600lbs for a double at 200lbs bodyweight. That's up there in powerlifting terrority beyond all but the very strongest bodybuilders.

muscle bulk means increased diameter of the single muscle fiber. it has nothing to do with strength.
training to become stronger probably will, as a side effect, induce amounts of hypertrophy, but what will make you stronger is your increased neuromuscular performance, not the added bulk. training for sheer bulk (i.e.: with hypertrophy as primary goal, wont make you as strong as you could be)
from how i undertsood you, bulk is a form of strength, which is not the case.

re benchpressing exclusively: slowly, you're getting there.
let me break it down:
your benchpressing exercise is an anaerobic workout that targets a set of muscles. you will gain a varying percentage of strength and bulk, depending on how exactly your training is organized.
if you do benchpressing excessively, almost all the stimuli your body will receive are reduced to a certain pathway of generating energy (anaerobic - which is good, because anaerobic pathways generate more power but cant hold thieir output for long periods) - hence your muscle will be accustomed to outputting in that pathways force range. and, youll be neglecting a load of other muscles that wont receive any stimuli, hence degrade, because they arent needed.

if you do excessive amounts (i.e.: to the exclusion or strength workouts) of aerobic training, no matter whether you jog or walk, all the stimuli you give your body will be in the force range of your aerobic pathway: low power, long times, and fed on the breakdown of fats and proteins.
the muscle-degrading effect is to one part that the muscle wont need to be present for more than aerobic low-power output AND if you dont adjust it via nutrition, youll indeed burn protein. (even if you walk excessively, youll eventually lose your bulk - bulk isnt needed for walking in the sunshine all day)
if you give your body enough stimuli not to get rid of the muscle mass of your strength or bulk training, running isnt dangerous. especially since we live in an age where you can absolutely circumvent protein shortage, if that ramps up to be an issue.

the big deal now is: sprint workouts are fed on the same energy pathways as your benchpressing routine. they dont consume fat and protein but either atp/phosphocreatine (if you do really short max power bursts) or glucose breakdown (you know this pathway: it creates lactic acid in the process and is used for less intensive power output than atp but also holds longer durations, but before aerobic pathways kick in), and target muscles with an intensive stimulus (sprinting, throwing power punches repeatedly, doing successions of kicks, etcetera) rather than a low-power easy-going stimulus (like jogging around, walking, nordic walking, etcetera). please look up and understand the difference between a pushup and a plyometric pushup - chances are that you dont come remotely close to plyometric exercises as a bodybuilder - i know of a boxing trainer who does plyo pushups with three hand claps before he comes down to the ground again: front/back/front of his body. anyway, plyometric, or speed strength, exercises target a lot of muscle fibers and aim to increase the percentage of muscle fibers activated per time.
so, the sprint exercise itself (!) wont consume body fat (a said: anaerobic, glucose breakdown). what makes it so suitable for that goal is an observed effect that doing such a workout will keep your metabolism pushed for the rest of the day, feeding primarily on body fat. again, no protein consumed but getting your body to feed off body fat when your exercise is over already.

re bruce lee and my diarrhea: point being: you cant induce stories when all you know is numbers or extremely reduced snippets of information. no way you could have guessed i just had diarrhea - no way you could guess that bruce took steroids. you can hold the theory, but its just that, one theory amongst many.
and no, i dint lose 17 kg, but came quite close. i lost about 10-11 kilos during the whole process (losing water, degrading muscle mass because i lay in a hospital bed all day... you get the point).

re bodybuilding performance:
sprinters outrun bodybuilders, weightlifters outlift bodybuilders, even scrawny me outpunches bodybuilders and you sure dont want to know how bad a bodybuilder will fare against a wrestler. actually, most bodybuilders i have encountered were under heavy coordinative pressure (not to mention the huffing and puffing) when told to skip rope for three minutes. getting their legs up to someone elses ribcage? near impossible. doing so in a fast, explosive manner? never seen.
yeah, youll probably outlift everyone who isnt training for strength only as a primary goal... but to what cost? your bulk is in the way of getting anything done and all serious strength athletes will lift circles around you.
but then, once the he-man lookalike competition starts, its all a question of the haircut to decide which bodybuilder takes victory home.

Tank Abbot can benchpress 270 kg. He wouldn't be able to do this with heavy anaerobic cardio sessions.



Pudzianowski does Karate (or so I've heard). His metabolism is fast because he has a pure mesomorphic body. Most powerlifters have a mesoendomorphical body, giving them the same advantage in muscle building, but less qualities in cardio workouts. Nobody say Pudzianowski was clean.



They do sledgehammer to perform better in the competitions, sicne strongman is also about tecnique. In the norwegian strongman championship, the only one ripped of fat was Arild Haugen, but he was very young.



They're stronger pound for pound in their legs. Nobody denied that. Pound for pound the builders are stronger in their upper bodys. Franco Columbu could squat 655 lbs already in the 70's, while not being much heavier than a sprinter. I have yet to see a sprinter benchpress or deadlift anything that's even remotely close to what the builders does.

Ben Johnson has also admitted to steroid usage. Just though you'd like to know. Bill Pearl could squat 605 lbs in 1966 and even more in 1971, when he was clean. He never did any anaerobic workouts. He also admitted that he stopped riding his bike because it caused a decay in his muscle mass.