Ever since I first discovered bodybuilding in 1992, I’ve been amazed at how lifting weights truly grounds me. It’s kind of similar to what my friends say about yoga or meditation: it brings me a sense of clarity and peace.

In an eastern sense, my “western” weight room is my dojo; the weights are my sensei. Students of karate or meditation may relate to encounter some of the same lessons I’ve learned in my western dojo:

Enter only when you’re ready. Lifting weights is hard work, and doing it properly requires focus and discipline. Anything less, and at best you’ll have a lousy workout. At worst, you’ll thoroughly embarrass yourself or die. Enter the dojo only when you are 100 percent ready to give it your all—including your mental concentration.

Leave the Blackberry behind. The dojo is no place for texting.

Be in flow. During a hard, effective set, I feel a certain unawareness of the activity around me. Musicians, actors and athletes call it being in the “zone.” Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, a Croatian born psychologist and author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience defines being “in flow” using the following characteristics:

1. Concentration and focus: a high degree of concentration with a limited field of attention (you will have the opportunity to focus, and to delve deeply into it).
2. A loss of self-consciousness.
3. A distorted sense of time: (your subjective experience of time is altered).
4. Direct and immediate feedback (success and failure in the course of the activity are apparent, so that your behavior can be adjusted as needed).
5. The activity is neither too easy nor too difficult (challenge and ability level are balanced).
6. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
7. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there’s an effortlessness of action.
8. You become absorbed in the activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself.

Do it for the sake of. When you’re in the gym, remember: this is all for you, so make the time in the dojo your own. You’re not there to impress your trainer, your spouse, or other gym goers. Do it because you choose to.

Clean up after yourself. After a workout, dojo trainees conduct a ritual cleaning of the space. This reinforces the fact that aside from the obvious hygenic benefits, the dojo are supposed to be supported and managed by the students themselves, not the instructors. So pick up that spray bottle and wipe down your equipment. It’s just good karma.

Watch client Arshavir Blackwell do the Sam Page “Upper Body Blast.”

I use video recordings as a strength coach to help athletes practice active visualization.

Two of my favorite leg exercises—the “Bulgarian Split Lunge” and the “Bosu Ball Squat”—are done here with precision by my client Dr. Arshavir Blackwell

We’re making clips from his videotaped sessions public here on PEACE LOVE LUNGES, YouTube, and his blog. Video recordings are one technique I use as a coach to help my athletes practice active visualization.

…Doing Exercises.

It’s just another form of active visualization, which helps athletes more objectively analyze their performance and correct what’s not right. My client and scientist, Dr. Arshavir Blackwell, is taking that a step further by making sections of his videotaped sessions with me public on YouTube and his blog.

AT AGE 16, I WAS LAZY—AND FAT. Naturally, then, when I had to choose between “Men’s Powerlifting” and “Body Mind and Spirit” during my junior year of high school, I chose the second.

And it really was PERFECT: I’d read a little from THE TAO, do a little TAI CHI, and of course: meditate, usually with this image of Val Kilmer in Top Gun stuck in my head. Guess what?

A few months later, I was training for admission to West Point.

The importance of visualization and breathing is underrepresented in fitness, but in meditation—it’s paramount. I’ve seen it first hand, training thousands of hours with clients in private sessions. But I’ve experienced it while “butchering” an aria on an audition for the LA Opera, and as an Army cadet: running the muddy fields of Fort Lewis (with a 40-pound ruck on my back)

“It’s not enough to work out and eat right. To make a lasting change, you need to reach inside, connect your mind with your body, and a future vision of who you are becoming.”

This image of Mark Wahlberg is what I chose as “my future self” back in 1997 after moving to L.A. I ‘photoshopped’ my head on Mark’s body, and printed dozens of stickers, putting them everywhere, even on the back of my license.

You don’t have to join the Army, audition for the opera, or pay a trainer to make this connection. You can start with meditation. Be ready to answer this question: what does YOUR “future self” look like?

Recently I started playing on a soccer team. There are two practices a week which are a few hours long, and two games which are a couple hours long. But, I’m finding myself really fatigued during the day and having trouble sleeping at night. Also my appetite just hasn’t been what it used to be. What’s happening to me?
—Karen, Eagle Rock

You may be overtraining. Symptoms of overtraining can include loss of appetite, strange or disturbed sleeping patterns, muscle soreness that doesn’t seem to go away, and general fatigue.The best way to minimize the risk of overtraining is to try “cyclical training” procedures, (alternating easy, moderate and hard periods of training). As a general rule, 1 or 2 days of intense training should be followed by an equal number of easy training days.Some other ways you can avoid overtraining are:

• Varying your training methods.
• Taking advantage of, scientific application of the many therapeutic modalities at your disposal (such as chiropractic, massage, acupuncture, acupressure, yoga, sound therapy, stretching).
• Following sensible, scientific nutritional practices and supplementation.
• Using good lifting techniques.
• Getting proper sleep and rest.
• Taking advantage of various psychological techniques that promote restoration (for example, therapy, meditation, visualization, hypnotherapy, aromatherapy).
• Avoiding all other stressors in your life that can become problematic to your training efforts (whether environmental, psychological, sociological, biochemical, physiological or anatomical in nature).