Sterling K. Brown says his teachers told him to stop lifting weights

Not everyone endorsed Sterling K. Brown‘s exercise routine in grad school.

“My teachers told me to stop lifting weights,” the “This Is Us” star told Men’s Health of his NYU professors. “I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ And they were like, ‘It’s gonna be hard for things to pass through you with all this musculature. So for emotion, for feelings to flow through, you have to be a vessel, a sieve, rather than something that is heavily armored.'”

Brown, who then looked to cardio and yoga, now regularly incorporates calisthenics and basketball into his workouts — and he’s now ripped.

“There’s a wider breadth of who you can be onstage than was allowed on the camera,” the 43-year-old actor explained. “Denzel Washington, Sam Jackson, Delroy Lindo, Don Cheadle — all these dudes come from theater, and they weren’t jacked-up, crazy-looking dudes.”

Though Brown has enjoyed immense professional success, the “Frozen II” star has other goals in mind, specifically, maintaining a balanced regimen and diet to reach 100 years of age.

“I just don’t want to give in to the statistical analysis that says that is my fate,” he says. “So I try to do things as proactively as possible to ensure that I’m around to see my children’s children and be of value to them when they come into the world. There’s so much to live for, and I don’t want to sell myself short by thinking I don’t have a right to longevity and vitality any more or less than anyone else.”