Who is the most highly conditioned man and how did they get there?

Talking about workouts here and this might not be for everyone.  I was discussing workouts with a bud and the topic turned to who the most highly conditioned person we've ever heard of and how did they accomplish it.

It was kinda hard believe it or not.  We can point to people that are highly conditioned when it comes to a certain sport.  Supposedly Jerry Rice at his prime was one of the most highly conditioned football players in history (although you could probably add several other players and even then you might need to break it down by position).  If you look at basketball people rant about Kobe in his prime, and today they talk about Howard as being a conditioned beast.

But what if we take out the caveat of it being conditioned to perform a particular sport?  What if we talk about what we're interested in on this blog...either combat conditioning or just being in the best shape possible?

Who should we look to for an example and is it possible to follow their workout routine?

I contend that Bruce Lee was the best conditioned individual that I've ever heard of.  Supposedly for a man of his weight and age he was pound for pound the strongest man in the world (of course a lot of this is based on fandom but you can still see examples of him working out on the net).

How did he do it?  He emphasized early on simple bodyweight exercises that are familiar to anyone, anywhere.  Only later did he add weight training (Herschel Walker also made the pushup cool by stating that he did 1000 a day).

What does this have to do with anything?  Not much but it has me thinking.  Mr Olympia has been called a beauty pageant and not an actual sports competition...additionally too many of those people have been dying early of various ailments (definitely due to steroid abuse but that's a different story).  If we're actually talking about achieving ultimate fitness do we need to put down the weights and simply start doing planks, pushups, situps, crunches, pull ups and the rest of the menu on the bodyweight exercise tree?

I'm really beginning to think so.  If it's about LOOKING a certain way then yeah hit the weights (and that's a huge motivator if we're being honest), but if you want FUNCTIONAL fitness then there is a different way.