Strong AND Slim

[Corvo]

As a young boy who grew up watching Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan films, I was always very impressed by the fact that they (Lee, Chan, etc.) were obviously very strong but still had slim bodies, rather than being really muscly. Now that I'm finally taking the first steps to becoming a martial artist myself, I would like to know how they did it. How do you increase strength and muscle definition without getting big muscles that might sacrifice speed or flexibility?

Oh, in case it's relevant, or just in case you're interested, I'm 19 years old and am studying kung fu and capoeira.

[Ikken Hisatsu]

jackie chan is not slim. hes built. watch his earlier movies, he is quite a stocky fellow with loads of muscle. bruce lee was not a muscular person, and really you should not base your training on what he did because
a) its out of date and
b) there is no proof to say that he was of any significant strength anyway.

getting packed with muscles and becoming slower is a myth. if this were the case jerome lebanner would not kick the amount of ass that he does.

and remember, bigger and stronger> smaller, weaker and SLIGHTLY faster. there is a reason why they have weight classes in pretty much every combat sport.

[Corvo]

Actually, I was thinking of his earlier movies. If you have Drunken Master, watch the scene where he first learns the 8 styles of drunken boxing. He has incredible definition but is still really slim. I didn't mean he doesn't have muscle, just that he doesn't have the look of a body-builder. That's what I want to achieve. How do you train in such a way that you increase strength and definition without getting bigger?

[Self]

Best thing i've found is, don't train with weights. Have your workouts consists of pull ups, push ups, sit ups, leg ups, running, skipping, swimming, cycling. There's a great deal to choose from. But i'm sure lifting weights and balancing that with cardio should get you close to your desired physique but using your own body weight will give you more definition and equally or stronger muscles.

[Broadsword2004]

Jackie Chan is a big guy, and slim doesn't equal skinny. You can be skinny and have all muscle still, just you're skinny. Some people are flabby and skinny. Others are skinny, but they still are all muscle, not flab.

Jackie Chan was lean and slim, but he had a lot of muscle on him still. Still does. Even Brad Allan, the first Western guy to join Jackie's stunt team said, when he first met Jackie, that he couldn't believe how big he actually was. If you see a person built like that in person, you can see how big they really are. On TV, they will look a bit thinner.

And don't get the term "bodybuilder look" confused with "massive look." Bodybuilding refers to building the muscles of the body so that they all show themselves. It has nothing to do with getting all big and freaky the way the pros must nowadays. That is why natural bodybuilding is gaining so much popularity now. Because you get normal-sized guys who have great physiques. If you look at Sylvestor Stallone in the first Rambo movie (First Blood), his physique isn't that big. Yet he is not at all skinny or anything. He is very defined, and thickly muscled, just not freaky big.

If you want to get built like that, do calisthenics and power moves of weight training (presses, lifts, etc...) and eat healthy and keep up the cardio. Then you will be shredded.

Look at Brad Pitt's physique in the recent movie Troy. He is in no way huge or super bulky, but he is not at all skinny either. He has a very shredded physique in the movie. His physique in Fight Club is also very decent.

Look at Olympic sprinters. They have very muscled upper bodies. And they don't have thin, "solid" bodies either---they are heavily muscled on top. Yet they are fast as hell. Yet, even with being heavily muscled, they aren't enormous or freaky-looking.

Weights combined with calisthenics are the best thing. There are no calisthenics out there that can train your legs like squats can. Or hamstring curls. Or calves.

Don't fall into the cult that believes ONLY in calisthenics training. Remember, resistance training is resistance training. Calisthenics are fantastic for the upper-body strength training, but weight training, such as the deadlift for the lower back, cannot be supplemented by any calisthenic exercise. And you don't want strong abs and a weak lower back. And then there's the legs, as I already said.

Also, REMEMBER THIS: Getting big muscles takes some heavy, heavy training combiend with lots of protein and some other muscle-bulking things too. Otherwise, you will probably just get a decent-sized physique that is shredded. Remember, muscle strength and muscle size are different things. People with big muscles for like bodybuilding often are no stronger then people with much thinner physiques (not skinny, just thinner), because their muscles are larger from added water from taking like creatine and such. But no stronger.

Also, if you workout hard, you may find you are getting stronger, but still not very bigger. Whereas a friend of yours may work out, and boom, they start getting bigger, along with stronger. The reason for that is because it means your body can grow stronger without making the muscles grow too much larger. Whereas your friend, in order for their muscles to gain strength, their muscles must grow larger.

[koto_ryu]

Best thing i've found is, don't train with weights. Have your workouts consists of pull ups, push ups, sit ups, leg ups, running, skipping, swimming, cycling. There's a great deal to choose from. But i'm sure lifting weights and balancing that with cardio should get you close to your desired physique but using your own body weight will give you more definition and equally or stronger muscles.

You can still train a lot with weights as long as you do it intelligently. "The Art of Expressing the Human Body" is a book I found to be highly valuable, it essentially consists of all the workouts Bruce Lee had done throughout his life and through those you can get a few interesting ideas. I grew fond of his sequence training and do those, and you can see how he concentrated only on the basic compound exercises, the best ones there are in weightlifting:

Clean and Press
Barbell Squats
Military Press
Deadlift
Bench Press
Barbell Curls

[Broadsword2004]

I have that book too, and be careful with it because some of what it recommends is outdated; remember, it even says in the cover that the stuff might be out dated. So double-check any exercise from that book.

[JasonE]

I have that book too, and be careful with it because some of what it recommends is outdated; remember, it even says in the cover that the stuff might be out dated. So double-check any exercise from that book.

Pretty much all of it is outdated. As a general rule, I don't trust anything that John Little has published to be more than half true, and then figuring out which half that is can be difficult.

Genetics are certainly a factor in how your body will respond to different kinds of training. How you eat, rest, and structure your training will enable you to tap into your body's predispositions to achieve the results you are looking for. Rather than taking someone else's workout as is, keep a log of what you do and how you progress, monitor how things work for you, and learn how to customize your workouts accordingly.

Here's an article on how to track your progress and learn to intuitively understand how/when to modify your programs:

http://www.circularstrengthmag.com/17/sonnon2.html

That said, speed and power aren't necessarily dependent on being cut up. Here's an article I recently wrote on this very subject:

http://www.circularstrengthmag.com/27/erickson.html

Enjoy!

[EmptyneSs]

uh, i dont know if u noticed, but bruce lee was incredibly muscular. his entire body was iron. he just happened to be a person with a very small frame and a naturally slender body, and all the cardio he did kept him slender as well.u dont gotta be big and bulky to be muscular. i forgot what movie it was in were he flexes and u see how incredibly huge his lats were compared to his body size, they were like airplaine wings. i hear alot of people here saying shit like, i wanna be slim like bruce lee, not muscular. well, bruce lee was incredibly muscular for his size. he lifted weights regularly, and he acheived a level of fitness most of us never will.

the point is, u need to put aside ur appearance and work to become as strong and fast as ur body will allow u to be. everyones body will end up looking different as a result of their hard work, ur goal shouldnt be to look like someone else.

[koto_ryu]

Pretty much all of it is outdated.

Let's see: basic compound exercises designed to build strength and explosive power throughout the body, an excellent stretching workout, calisthenics, abwork, isometrics....seems pretty good to me.

The reason why everyone thinks it's "outdated" is because now weightlifting forums cater to the pumpers and roidheads, guys who just want to get massive and care little about functional strength. I'm a big fan of traditional "old-timer" exercises, such as lifting beer kegs or large sandbags, gripwork, the overhead press (back in the days you were considered a sissy if you couldn't press at least 200 overhead; nowadays everyone cares about the bench), and basic compound exercises.

Call me a traditionalist, but if it worked for them back then with excellent results, it seems silly to just write them off as "outdated" and useless.

[ZenZhu]

Bear in mind folks were fit long before we had Nautilus machines and the like. I've been slowly working on a strength-training routine that is based on the more simplistic compound movements that lead people to be fit even without weights.. but utilize what we have available today, since we no longer need to carry buckets of water long distances and such. Your compound exercises like the clean and jerk, push ups, and such work well in that they utilize several different muscle groups at once. Then there are exercises that simulate activities that have always been known to be good for you.. chopping wood, for example. Of course, if you live in an apartment like myself, or in Florida, you have little need to chop wood. Still, the motion can be replicated with a dumbell or barbell. I'm partial to a barbell with weight at one end, which you'll be able to increase as your strength develops. I also use a 9lb. body bar for motions like sword-strikes and such.

The "muscleheads" with the muscles that are so big they can barely scratch their rear end also do a lot of isolation work where they target one specific set of muscles like biceps, glutes, quads, lats, deltoids, etc. Think about all of the guys you see in countries like Africa and Asia that don't even live near a gym or a set of weights, yet are very fit from the rigors of their daily work. You never see any of them popping out muscles like someone just opened a tube of biscuits.. they are just very fit and muscular.

[bred]

LOL muscleheads...

I just wanted to say that there is no way you will get too big. You won't just wake up one day and be too big. It takes years upon years of intense training, spot on nutrition and genetics to get that big as well as steriods (the naturals just use less steriods or the same amount and are not genetically able to get big so they claim natural). You should just start to lift and look into a multi-vitamin and a good whey protein for pre-post workout. Creatine is also good it speeds recovery and aids in muscle endurance and strength. If you continue your current activities you will not all of the sudden become slow and inflexible (I think I just made up a word). Bruce Lee was freakishly strong but had no mass just density. Brad Pitt in fight club was tiny just cut with good abs, abs are genetic too if you want them it has to do more with bf% than anything else. People actually look alot bigger on screen upwards 10 pounds or more and the lower your bodyfat the bigger you look. Detail and definition depends on genetics as well and bf%. Good luck.

[adacas]

if you want to get strong and stay lean just don't take in as many calories. Weight gain is tied very closely to the amount of calories you take in. You will get stronger but without the building blocks to get bigger you'll stay small.