He Routinely Pulls His Own Weight

“Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” is completing its sixth season on NBC. Now, we can’t say exactly how much of the sitcom’s popularity is due to 24-year-old Alfonso Ribeiro--the fellow with those great arms who plays Carlton--but he’s certainly the reason we tune in.

Question: Trust me on this--we have to start with the arms. Do you lift weights?

Answer: Weights rip your muscle. Your muscle heals back bigger, but if you notice who has the best bodies they are not the guys who are weightlifters. They’re normally gymnasts because they’re doing their own body weight.

Q: Then how do you get those arms?

A: I started doing body weight. Your own body is the right amount of weight for what you need to lift, and it’s also healthier for your joints. If I wanted to do my shoulders, I would put my elbows on a bar and then I’d lift my body up.

Q: What’s the rest of your workout like?

A: First, I do 20 to 25 minutes of stretching. If I can emphasize anything--stretch, stretch, stretch because people don’t feel as if it’s doing anything to their muscles. Look at Mikhail Baryshnikov. I mean, he’s got an incredible body. You know, for a male. He’s got great cuts, good lines. Why wouldn’t anyone want to look like that?

Q: I agree. Then what?

A: Twenty to 25 minutes on the treadmill, doing the cardio, which is important to me. I do the bike for 20 minutes. Then, I’m on my butt, take my legs and throw them up toward my chest and do this 100 times. That works your lower back and your ass.

And I always do an ab workout. Get on the flat bench and do five sets of 100 crunches. I had a gut, and three weeks later I had abs and I lost 15 pounds. You can’t be lollygagging and talking to people. You’ve got to go in there, get your stuff done and get out.

Q: What do you eat to keep the weight off?

A: I just cut out all the things in my diet that are bad. I stopped eating at Ronald McDonald’s--you know, all the fast-food places. They were out. I started eating a lot of salads. Instead of regular cheese, nonfat cheese. Nonfat milk. Cut out drinking. Once a week I allow myself a little bit of red meat. I’m not a fish kind of guy, so I would just eat chicken and turkey.

Q: Do you make it a point to go to the gym every day?

A: You’re going to burn out if you’re always in the gym. If I have maybe an hour, I’ll go play basketball. Or work out right here in the dressing room. Put on a good tape and stand in place and run. I play a song with a fast beat over and over again and just keep running until I get a good sweat. If I want to do my arms or my chest, I can do the body-weight push-ups right here in this chair.

Q: You do any sports besides basketball?

A: I play a little tennis and a lot of golf. You wake up at 5 o’clock, the sun’s coming up and the dew is out there and you’re in grass and woodsy areas. It’s a place to get away sometimes. It’s serenity.

Q: Unlike car racing.

A: I love car racing. It’s the opposite of what you think. Instead of being pumped up to go fast, you have to be very calm. The calmer you are in the car, the better you drive, normally. I can stay out the night before and then get in the car and I’m so tired I’m not ever trying to be pushy. I’m just chillin’. For me it’s a mental game. Racing cars is more mental than it is physical.

Q: Where do you race?

A: Long Beach is my track. I don’t have to think about Long Beach. I know the lines. I know each turn. Say you’re making a right turn and the road goes toward the outer wall, if you come off the gas at all you will hit the wall. So it’s one of those turns where you have to have the guts to go for it. If you don’t, you crash.

Q: Have you had close calls?

A: I had an incident this weekend where I spun out at 115. On the gas all the way through the turn, and if I had come off the gas smoothly it would have been fine but I came off too quickly and the car fishtailed. I did a 180 in one direction, stopped and then did a 360 in the other direction. Kinda crazy.

Q: That must drive the studio heads bonkers.

A: I’m young and I don’t know how long I’ll live. It’s important to me to enjoy every day, everything that I do. If I wanted to go jump off a building, I’d put a parachute on my back and jump off. I’m that type of person. If I need to conquer something, I will do that.

* Guest Workout runs every other Wednesday in Life & Style.