 Although Lundgren never competed as a professional bodybuilder, he has been closely associated with bodybuilding and fitness since his role as Drago in the mid-1980s. Bodybuilding.com said "looking like a man in his 30s rather than his 50s, Lundgren is the poster boy of precise nutrition, supplementation and exercise application that he has practiced for over 35 years." In an interview with them he claims to often train up to six days a week in the gym, usually one-hour sessions completed in the morning, saying that "it's just one hour a day, and then you can enjoy the other 23 hours". Although he had begun lifting weights as a teenager, he cites Sylvester Stallone as the man who got him into serious bodybuilding for a period in the 1980s after arriving in the United States. Stallone had a lasting influence on his fitness regime and his diet, ensuring that he ate a much higher percentage of protein in his diet and eating 5 or 6 smaller meals a day. Lundgren has professed never to have been "superstrong", saying that, "I'm too tall and my arms are long. I think back then [Rocky IV] I was working with around 300 pounds on the bench and squat."
