Will Smith dropped his body fat to the single digits for his movie I, Robot. Look how ripped he is!

Will Smith is one of the hardest working men in Hollywood. Smith would do whatever it took to land a movie role and perfect his craft. He takes his workout routine just as serious and applies his same outlook on life to his workout routine.

“I will not be outworked. Period,” Smith says. “You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me, you might be all of those things. You got it on me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, there’s two things: You’re getting off first, or I’m gonna die. It’s really that simple.”

To get ready for his movie I, Robot and Ali, Smith used boxing and celebrity personal trainer Darrell Foster. Foster is a real boxing coach who trained the likes of Sugar Ray Leonard for 18 years. It proved to work very well, making Smith’s physique emulate that of Muhammad Ali’s.

Smith did jump roping to build up his cardio and attain that lean physique.

The hardest working man in Hollywood may also be the hardest working man in the gym. He did a lot of cardio workouts to keep off the weight and also focused on pyramid training to really build some added strength.

Will Smith’s workout for Ali was designed to beef up the skinny actor. For that role, Smith went from 185 pounds to a rock hard 220 pounds of muscle on his body. To get ready for the film, he started training 12 months even before filming began.

Will Smith’s workout training routine looked something like the following:

Run 5 miles a day for six days a week first thing in the morning. He likes to listen to audio books during his runs. Audio books during his run? There’s a reason he is one of the smartest actors in Hollywood; he listens to books when he runs!

Weight training routine around 5 PM. He performs weightlifting training 5 days per week and trains two body parts per workout. His trainer likes to use a pyramid training routine, in which he starts light and goes heavy and then goes back to lighter weights for each exercise.

At the end of his training with Foster, Smith was able to finish off his chest workout by bench pressing 315 pounds for two sets of five reps. Then he would grab 135 pounds and bench until failure. Smith’s body type is what’s known as an ectomorph, in which you are naturally skinny and have problems putting on weight. Smith stated, “I have a much easier time losing weight than putting weight on.”

Smith does have a tendency towards eating sweets. As a result, his trainer allowed him to enjoy himself by providing a way for him to eat them during the week, yet still stay in shape. Smith follows a high protein and low carbohydrate diet. To get that ripped physique, Foster would have Smith eat asparagus (this vegetable acts a diuretic, extracting water from the body) and drink dandelion tea (dandelion tea is a natural diuretic). These little tricks brought Will Smith down to 6% body fat and in better shape than he has been before. In terms of his workout, he trained five days a week and did two body parts each workout. This surely gave him enough muscular stimulation. The fact that he gives himself two off days is good because he is able to recover and build up his body. His pyramid training routine is a very effective workout because it really builds up strength and prevents injuries. Many injuries occur because people don’t properly warm-up. For example, if you are bench-pressing 225 lbs., you should warm up with weights of 85, 135, 185 and 200 lbs. before repping out 225 lbs. It’s more to get your muscles adapted to the trauma that will be placed on it and to get the blood flow going. A pyramid routine accomplishes this and you are able to go progressively heavier to the point where your muscle is really warmed up and trained.

Source: Adapted from a compilation of YouTube clips, documentaries, forums, interviews and/or features