Alfonso Ribeiro Talks About His 'Dancing With The Stars' Partner Witney Carson And His Groin Injury

Week nine of Dancing With the Stars season 19 has officially begun. Tonight's all-new episode of the reality series brings more stress and higher stakes. Contestant Alfonso Ribeiro is opening up about his partner Witney Carson and revealing how his groin injury is healing.

Tonight Alfonso and Witney will be performing two full-length routines, which could cause some problems for the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air alum. Alfonso previously injured his groin and with his constant rehearsal schedule, it hasn't had time to completely heal.

"It's been really grueling for me, because it's constantly doing treatment on my body. There's never enough hours in the day, because I've got to literally dance all day and then try to do treatment in between," Alfonso told TVGuide.com. "So, I'll either do treatment in the morning or I do it in the evening. I had someone at my house last night show up at 9 p.m., working on me 'til 10:30 p.m., working on my body, trying to help make it last. It's really been very frustrating."

As for how his groin is feeling this week, the actor explained, "I feel like I can't do 100 percent. I can't get it to that next level." He added, "I feel like I'm delivering 85 percent rather than 100, because I know that if I go harder then I'm going to injure it more. I have to give it half energy until performance night, and then I turn it up."

Despite the injury to his groin, Alfonso is going to try and successfully perform both the foxtrot and the paso doble this week. Luckily, his partner Witney is a huge help and constantly brings his spirit up in the studio when they are practicing.

"The thing is, I'm pretty much like a clown. I'm constantly being silly and having fun and laughing. It's really light in our rehearsal studio. We don't get bogged down. We don't get upset, we don't get frustrated," he admitted to the publication.

Now that they have been through eight weeks together, their partnering style is fun rather than stressful. "So, Witney and I have gotten to that place where we're totally comfortable, on Wednesday night, knowing, hey, we don't have the dance yet, but it's going to come. We know it will. So we're much more relaxed and we both just kind of laugh and we're having fun," the 43-year-old star revealed.

He added, "And I think that I've kind of rubbed off on her, because now she's silly in the studio also. We just have fun ... We just truly get along. It's really kind of easy. It never gets difficult for us. I'm like her older brother now. It's really great."

Photo: Dancing With The Stars' Facebook