I relax until the moment I bring every muscle of my body into play, and then concentrate all the force in my fist. To generate great power you must first totally relax and gather your strength, and then concentrate your mind and all your strength on hitting your target.
-Bruce Lee

For Bruce Lee, a vital difference existed between strength and power, and this difference involved much more than semantics. He defined strength as “the ability of the body to exert great force.”
Power, on the other hand, Lee defined as “the ability to release an explosive force to produce a quick, sudden movement to move the body with maximum effort.” He also stated that “power involves the rate of speed at which the force is expressing itself.”

In other words, power was the marriage of strength and velocity, and a considerable amount of each had to exist if great power was expected to be unleashed within a given martial art technique.
One of Lee’s students, Dan Inosanto, recalled Lee once asking him, “Can you tell me the difference, Dan, when I say that this guy is a strong martial artist and this guy is a powerful martial artist?”

Inosanto paused before he replied, “I don’t know, what is the difference?” Lee’s response was: ”A man can be strong, but if he cannot use that strength quickly, he is not powerful.”
Lee’s response is physiologically accurate.

For example, in a sport such as track and field, some rookie coaches have discovered that sometimes a fellow who is strong enough to bench press impressive weights can’t parlay that strength into a very powerful shot put. According to film star James Coburn, who was one of Lee’s more frequent private students, the power or “strength put quickly into motion” by Lee was almost frightening to witness:
I was living on Tower Road.
It was kind of a Spanish style place that had a patio and Bruce and I would train out there. Anyway, Bruce brought over this big, heavy tackle bag ,football players use them a lot. We hung it up with a big iron hook and used it for practicing our side kicks. So I was fIicking away with a kick and Bruce said “You’re too fIicky-fIicky! You’ve got to become involved in the technique!” When punching, he said, ”Always lead with the little finger-pow! -it goes out there!”

Anyway, he was saying, “Okay now, this is the way to do it,” and he kicked this bag, which must have weighed between 100 to 150 pounds. Well, he actually kicked a hole in the middle of it! He broke the chain that was supporting it, and it went flying out into the lawn. I remember that it was filled with rags and there were rags everywhere! I must have been picking up rags for months around there all over the lawn. It was really an astounding thing to see.

Learning to Apply Power: The Heavy Bag

One of Lee’s favorite pieces of training apparatus was the heavy bag. The heavy bag is not particularly exotic; it typically weighs 70 pounds and can be found in many fitness facilities and, of course, in every boxing gym. For Bruce Lee heavy bag bag training was a must, Lee could work seriously on improving the devastating power of his striking and kicking techniques.

Building strength through weight training was one thing, but being able to have your body apply power in the right amount and at the right time was another matter and required special training.

After all, Lee reasoned, it isn’t knowing how that’s important, it’s doing. Even the finest techniques in the world would prove useless without the requisite power to carry them out. Lee once told the readers of Black Belt magazine to “hang a heavy bag in your basement and use your legs as you would your hands.”

Although Lee later cautioned against excessive use of the heavy bag, he still considered it an essential component of his power, training regimen. To those just beginning to train with the heavy bag, Lee offered the following advice: “Start with 3 sets of 50 repetitions of each type of punch, then put them together in combinations.

Then work in your kicks individually, then in combination. Finally, work in your hands and your feet in combination.” Lee also advised the user to wear bag gloves and/or tape the hands and wrists to prevent injuries and to receive proper training advice on proper techniques on heavy bag training.

Besides your conventional bag weighing approx 70 pounds Bruce Lee was given as a surprise gift from Bob Wall, himself a champion martial artist and a co star in several of Bruce lee’s movies a special custom made 300 pound bag pictured below.

According to several Bruce Lee biographies Bob Wall had to put the top down on his convertible to surprise Bruce since it would not fit in the back seat or trunk of his car.

Dan Inosanto and others have said Bruce Lee was the only one who could kick this bag and make the whole hoses shake, others who tried could barely make it move.

There are a couple of great online courses to teach you proper bag technique, for the first one which has a Boxing baseClick Here!.

Another great online course for developing punching power is Muay Thai based and it is below.

Before you begin any type of Bruce Lee heavy bag training make sure you protect your hands with wraps and gloves but just as important is using a Iron Palm liniment before and after your heavy bag training. It should be a authentic Iron Palm liniment and not a Dit Da Jow liniment.

Iron Palm will strengthen the bones, tendons, and connective tissue insuring you do not have problems in the future with your hands like arthritis or tendonitis.

Another benefit of Iron Palm is that it stops pain allowing you to punch at 100% and not worrying or thinking about pain. Being able to punch at full blast is extremely important in developing power.

The herbs in a Iron Palm formula are different than in a Dit Da Jow which focuses on blood stagnation and blood stasis conditions like bruises, sprains, contusions and swelling. If you get bruised up sparring you use Dit Da Jow, you hit the heavy bag or a Wing Chun dummy you use the Iron Palm.

For more information we have several articles, just click the links below to learn more.

Dit Da Jow

Iron Palm

Dit Da Jow and Iron Palm FAQ

A Laymans guide to Dit Da Jow and Iron Palm