There’s a side of competitive bodybuilding that rarely ever makes it to Instagram. The stage photos, the flawless posing, the hard-earned physiques don’t reveal what happens after the lights go down and the body stops cooperating.

Naturopathic Doctor Sabrina Solt competed in four NPC bikini competitions while in medical school. Like many athletes, she followed the classic prep formula of strict meal plans, hardcore calorie deficits, strength and cardio on repeat.

It all worked—until it didn’t. “It kept me very dialed in while studying,” she remembers. But after her last competition, she says almost immediately, she gained about 40 pounds and her cycles became abnormal. “I was tired all the time,” she recalls her frustration. “I could nap at the drop of a dime. [At that time] I was just in a really rough state and nothing that I was doing was working.”

She got caught in a rebound spiral that might be familiar to industry veterans. She doubled down, cut more calories, pushed harder in the gym, and upped her cardio. But none of it helped.

“It actually made things worse,” she says. “It wasn’t until I started eating more that I started healing. I had to actually ‘undiet’ myself. I was able to re-regulate my cycle, and went on to have three children.”

How to Avoid The Mistakes Sabrina Solt Made

Her advice to today’s competitors, especially for women, is to stop prepping like it’s still 1990.

“If I was going to do it again, I would focus more on red meat over chicken and fish,” she says. “Four ounces of steak gives you more nutrients than four ounces of tilapia. I was severely undernourished for a significant amount of time. That’s what wrecked me.”

She’s unapologetic about what works for her now, which is a mainly carnivore approach that healed two decades of irritable bowel syndrome, cleared her skin, and balanced her hormones.

“A lot of the plants we eat are loaded with anti-nutrients, like oxalates, lectins, phytic acid, that were destroying me,” she explains. “Once I eliminated them, within six months, all those issues went away.”

Still, she’s not dogmatic. She’ll have fruit. She’ll enjoy a bite of dessert. But everything she eats now is aligned with one question: Will this set me up for a successful day?

Today, Dr. Solt trains three to five days a week, on and off with a trainer, mostly strength training with cardio in the form of interval training. “I work out because it makes me a better mom, a better doctor, a better person,” she says.

She’s also raising three children, while at the same time running a regenerative medicine clinic. Successfully juggling a full schedule requires Solt to actively protect her energy with tools like red light therapy, peptides, and what she calls her ultimate secret weapon: saying no.

“I’m a recovering people pleaser,” she admits. “But I had to get clear on my values and priorities. Otherwise, I’d spread myself too thin.”

Sleep is her non-negotiable. “I make sure I can get at least seven hours a night, no matter what.”

When she needs extra recovery, she reaches for BPC-157, an orally available peptide known for speeding up healing. “A few weeks ago, I tweaked my rotator cuff lifting. I took BPC-157 and it was gone in a couple days,” she says.

That personal transformation is part of why she was featured in the soon-streaming Amazon documentary sHEALed, the follow-up to the five-part Biohack Yourself documentary series.

The film puts women at the center of the biohacking movement and explores the evolving tools in longevity, hormone health, regenerative medicine, and strength-building beyond aesthetics. “I was honored to contribute,” she says. She shared her work on stem cells, hormone therapy, and peptides, but also the bigger picture of helping women understand how to take ownership of their health.

Using Stem Cells for Recovery and Longevity

Dr. Solt now helps athletes and everyday people heal faster and smarter through regenerative medicine at her clinic in Scottsdale, AZ.

She specializes in stem cell treatments, and she’s quick to bust the myth that you need to leave the country to access legitimate therapies.

“You can get stem cells in the United States,” she says, noting that true stem cell treatments use your own cells. She most frequently uses adipose-derived stem cells, where they take the patient’s fat through a minor liposuction.

“The amount of fat that we take is usually equivalent to one or two sticks of butter,” she explains.

She underscores that post-treatment recovery is critical. “The first week after a stem cell procedure, you’re in a purposeful inflammation phase,” she says. “You want to rest and let the body focus on healing.”

Why is that so? She explains that the body always wants to go after the most acute thing because it sees that as a threat. For example, she notes, “if we treated your knees but then you go out and do a really intense back workout, now you’ve caused purposeful trauma in that area and your body’s going to reshuttle resources over there, redirecting those freshly injected stem cells to recover the acute stressor.”

Prep is just as important too. She often stacks protocols with peptides, hormone optimization, and lifestyle recommendations to effectively prepare patients for stem cells and help that maximize recovery.

Dr. Solt also uses stem cells preventatively on herself. She’ll inject them a couple of times a year to stay ahead of old injuries and maintain longevity.

Redefining Strength: From Stage to Self

For Dr. Solt, strength has meant different things in her life throughout the years.

“I felt strong when I passed my medical boards. I felt strong giving birth to my kids.I felt strong opening my clinic during the start of COVID, and it was successful. And I’ve felt strong navigating my divorce after nine years of marriage,” she shares. “It’s been a complete rebirth.”

When asked what her definition of strength is now, her answer packed a punch. “Strong is showing up as your highest self in whatever the moment calls for.”

Photos: Yasmine Carmen Photography
Shot Location: Bio-Elite Personal Training

For Rashad McCants, the gym has never just been about building muscle—it’s been about building resilience. After his time as professional basketball player came to a close, McCants didn’t spiral—he recalibrated. In the weightroom, he found clarity. The repetition of each rep served as a reminder: strength is something you earn each day. What began as a competitive edge in his youth has transformed into a lifelong practice of self-mastery. The goal being not to impress, but to evolve.

After stepping away from the game, McCants didn’t spiral—but he did struggle. “When you’re in a dark place, when you lose everything—financially, character assassination—everything,” he says, “It weighs on you so heavy, and it’s not too many other places to go but to the gym.” The weightroom became more than a training ground. It became a sanctuary—where reps replaced frustration, and he finally could build his body up to his standards and not the requirement of his profession. In many ways, it saved him.

Unlike many former athletes who drift from structure once the final buzzer sounds, McCants leaned into routine. He redefined strength—less about aesthetics, more about awareness. “It was always wanting to get my body in a place where I’ve always wanted it to be,” he says. That pursuit has become a foundation, fueling every chapter that followed—from his no-filter insights on Gil’s Arena to building Myndset, a wellness platform focused on mindset mastery, mental resilience, and emotional literacy. “The strength in the mind, the strength in the body—it’s a special combination,” he says. For McCants, that’s the real work. And it’s only just beginning.

McCants spoke with Muscle & Fitness about the evolution of his relationship with training, the healing power of the gym, how he’s redefining strength through mindset and recovery, and why his next chapter is rooted in purpose-driven discipline.

McCants Has Always Felt At Home In The Gym

Long before McCants became a national champion at North Carolina, before the NBA and the headlines, there was the gym. It wasn’t about the spotlight, but about the grind. “It started in sixth grade,” he recalls. “We had this bench press contest for gym class—and it just felt good to be strong. From that point, being in the gym meant everything. It gave me an advantage—speed, strength, explosiveness.” That pursuit of strength became a steady undercurrent through every phase of his career, even when he had to dial it back to preserve his shooting mechanics or meet the physical demands of the league.

But when the whistle blew on his playing days, McCants finally had the freedom to go all in. The gym became less of a necessity and more of a sanctuary. “Once I finished, I was able to get right into the gym and create that physique for myself, and feel good about it,” he says. “It was never a vanity thing. I always wanted to get my body to the place I envisioned it—strong, functional, prepared.” With no more restrictions on size or mobility, he built the frame he always imagined, on his terms.

Still, McCants’ relationship with the weightroom evolved. After taking an intentional eight-month break to recalibrate, he was surprised at how his body responded. “I thought I’d lose a lot of my mass, but I didn’t,” he says. “I focused on eating cleaner, stretching, hydration—and when I got back in, it was smoother. I could stay longer without the strain. No burnout. Just joy.” That recalibration wasn’t about pushing harder—it was about pushing smarter. Full-body workouts, strategic recovery, steam room sessions, and stretching have all become staples in his blueprint for longevity.

Today, the iron is still therapy, but it’s also something more: a way to show up for himself and for those watching. “You pass the look test, people wanna talk to you,” McCants says. “You become an example of what the human body should look like, how it should function, and how we should thrive.” He’s not just maintaining a physique—he’s building a philosophy. One that connects strength to resilience, discipline to clarity, and the gym to something much bigger than a barbell.

Fitness As Therapy

For McCants, fitness is therapy. Each workout is a form of transformation—rage into reps, anxiety into output, pain into purpose. “That’s why so many men are in the gym,” he says. “We hold things in. That’s the one place we can let it out. Punch the heavy bag, push weight, curl, squat—it’s energy leaving the body.” But he’s quick to draw a line between healthy release and ego-fueled obsession. “If you’re in there just trying to be seen, trying to chase validation, it can backfire,” he warns. “You’ve got to know why you’re in there. Let the gym stay the gym. Leave the stress there.”

That clarity didn’t happen overnight. It took realigning how he viewed discipline, rest, and mental resilience. “Recovery and rest are the most important,” he emphasizes. “People forget that. They go every day, burn out, chase the mirror. Sometimes you gotta just take time off and recalibrate.” He’s learned to trust stillness as much as sweat—to let silence do its own kind of heavy lifting. It’s a discipline he says more people should lean into, especially in a world that glamorizes grind culture without context.

What McCants has built isn’t just physical strength—it’s a mental framework for weathering storms. “You never know what you’re going to need your strength for,” he says.” For him, fitness isn’t a supplement to his healing. It’s the heartbeat of it. And as he continues to evolve—as a thinker, a builder, a voice—he’s showing others that wellness isn’t just about looking the part. It’s about showing up for yourself when no one else will.

Resilience Beyond the Physical

After exploring his own personal growth in “Bum to Billionaire,” McCants has taken the same principles of emotional intelligence, mental wellness, and intentional living and incorporating it

into Myndset. It’s his way of giving form to philosophy. “There’s mentality, and then there’s your mindset,” he explains. “And I believe that everybody that has a mindset that aligns with their frequency and what they want for their lives, everything can change for them.” He’s quick to point out that mindset isn’t about just staying positive. It’s about self-check-in, identifying patters, and knowing when to reset.

The transition from concept to action is a labor of love. Through his own experiences as an athlete and being in the spotlight, McCants observed the disconnect between potential and preparation—especially in young athletes. He understands fully on how often physical discipline can be prioritized while mental and emotional development are inconsequential. Myndset is to help this imbalance.

In a lot of ways, the brand mirrors McCants’ own evolution. His focus on recovery, mediation, and training isn’t just physical anymore—it’s holistic. Currently, he’s laying the groundwork to launch Myndset through a mobile platform, starting with student-athletes. The app will feature emotional support coaches, mentors, and mental health resources tailored for those facing high-performance pressure. “We want to reach them early,” he says. “We want to see it through an athlete as our first phase and see how it does.”

Writing The Next Chapter

For years, McCants was defined by highlight reels and headlines. Now, he’s fully stepping into the power of his voice—unfiltered, reflectional, and irreverent. As a prominent regular on Gilbert Arenas’ Gil’s Arena, McCants has carved out a space not just to share hot takes, but to also be vulnerable, and give people a better understanding of himself. “Before Gil’s Arena, nobody really knew my personality,” he says. “They always knew the name, and that was connected to North Carolina, or Khloe Kardashian. I never had the opportunity to show them who I was.”

His opinions are authentic, as they are his truth. The show mirrors the practices McCants practice in his personal life: clarity, intention and internal discipline. There are no rehearsals or do overs on the show. Certain topics can sometimes get fiery, which is to be expected when alphas are sharing their opinions within the same space. “It’s never anything where anybody’s over happy or over sad,” he says. “It’s like when we used all used to practice. You never know whose going to go at each other on a given day.”

For the layers McCants has chosen to peel back publicly, the one thing he’s careful not to do is dwell on the past. When asked what advice he’d give to his younger self, he elects not to rewrite any part of his story. “He did a good job,” McCants says matter of factly. “He led the way.” He credits his younger self for helping to lay a foundation he still stands on today. Perceived setbacks or failures—he views through the lens of perspective, and not regret. “We can’t go back. We can’t chase the past,” he says. “And that can be tough because that’s he conversations we all have when we get around each other. We all kind of pull each other back into the past.”

You can only move forward and that what makes McCants evolution one that is grounded. The work, the growth—it’s all ongoing. Whether giving takes that spark emotions and debates across social, working to provide a platform for the next generation of athletes, or just showing up for himself in the gym, his focus is forward. He’s found that life isn’t about chasing who he used to be, but to be fully present and aware of who he’s becoming.

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Here’s a simple question for both male and female competitors in the body sports: Why are you 40-plus pounds over your contest weight? Even if you blame your coach, you’re the one who has to diet off all that chub.

Wouldn’t you rather diet off 10 or 15? It’s absolutely ridiculous to me that in the 21st century people still believe you have to rival Jelly Roll in the off-season to build any muscle. I hate to burst your bubble, but past a certain point, more food does not equate to more muscle. If anything, it equates to more fat — which you’ve totally proven by being 40-plus pounds over your contest weight.

Why do you get so fat? Because you believe rumor No. 1: If you gain 50 pounds in the off-season, some of it is going to be muscle. Diet off the fat and keep the muscle. Yeah… no. The problem with that is the newly gained 50 pounds is comprised mostly of fat. Very little — maybe three to five pounds — is going to be muscle.

Six-time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates, known to be huge in the off-season, once told me during an interview that when I asked him how much weight he thought he could gain between the Olympia he just won and the next one, he replied, “Maybe three to five pounds.” Shawn Ray was 213 pounds for 13 Olympias in a row. How can you bust your ass all year, eat thousands of dollars’ worth of food, gain a ton of weight, and only make minimal gains contest to contest? Because muscle is far more exercise-dependent than food-dependent. With enough stimulus, you can literally grow muscle with no food. You won’t grow any muscle without stimulus.

For decades, gym dogma preached that muscle wouldn’t grow without mountains of protein — but the truth is simpler, and older than any supplement ad: mechanical stress is king. You break a muscle down under load, the body signals hypertrophy. Period. That signal happens whether you’re feasting on steak or scraping by on stale rice cakes.

Studies (Hornberger 2004, Goldspink 2002, Bodine 2001) show that progressive tension activates muscle growth pathways — mTOR, IGF-1 — before nutrition even enters the conversation. And in a fasted state, the body can tap autophagy (Mizushima 2007) to salvage aminos and rebuild from its own cellular junk. Muscle is built with stress first, resources second.

Of course, without proper nutrition you’ll never maximize that growth. But the survival mechanism is hardwired: You either adapt to the load or break. That’s how you explain soldiers, laborers, and even prisoners getting jacked on minimal calories — stress forces adaptation.

Hypertrophy isn’t about spoon-feeding muscle. What you’re doing — or have to do — is telling your body that if it doesn’t get stronger, its survival is in peril. When faced with that kind of threat, your body adapts. That’s why muscle grows. And that’s only why muscle grows.

Now that you understand why the body builds muscle, how you do it is based on stimulus, nutrition, and recovery. Stimulus and recovery should be self-explanatory; nutrition is the great nebulous factor because there’s no shortage of gurus, coaches, and nutritionists (licensed or not) proclaiming one thing or another and selling a program or their service to prove it to you. What most — not all — have in common is that they regard protein as the core element of the program and base all their calculations on the amount of protein you ingest each day. This is precisely the point where science gets hatched by the bros.

Anyone who’s even remotely looked into the acquisition of added muscle mass has run into the declaration that you must consume 1 to 1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight every day to grow. While that may or may not be a good starting point, the reality is that this is one of bodybuilding’s biggest unchallenged myths. It’s been repeated so many times, by so many people, for so many years, that nobody ever even stops to ask: Where the hell did that number come from?

If you actually go looking for it — and I mean digging through real, peer-reviewed journals — you’ll find nothing that backs it up. Zero. Nada. The clinical research on protein requirements for hypertrophy never set that number in stone. It was bro science handed down from the Venice Beach sandbox, stuck in magazine articles, and repeated by supplement companies until it sounded like gospel.

Think about it. In the 1970s, Arnold and the boys were practically making this stuff up as they went along. There was no PubMed, no sophisticated sports nutrition, no gurus. There were just guys getting huge on eggs, beef, and bologna sandwiches, and when asked how much protein they were eating, they threw out “a gram per pound” because it sounded about right. Maybe it was — for them, in that moment. But no one ever ran a controlled study on it.

Fast forward a few decades, and the lab coats finally caught up. What do they say? Most research reviews today, including heavyweight names like Morton and Phillips, peg the optimal protein intake for maximizing hypertrophy at around 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilogram of lean mass. Do the math, and that works out to about 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of lean tissue — not bodyweight.

You read that right: lean mass, not total weight.

And this is where I see the second problem. Nobody ever clarifies which weight they’re talking about. Is it your off-season, bloated, water-logged, 40-pounds-above-contest weight? Or your lean body mass? Because if you’re calculating protein off your total bodyweight when you’re 25 pounds of beer-gut fatter than you should be, you’re overshooting your needs by a mile.

Protein is needed to build and maintain lean tissue, not your fat mass. Fat doesn’t need protein. It needs a diet. And most bodybuilders, let’s be honest, carry way too much fat in the off-season. That’s how you get guys eating 400 grams of protein per day when they really only need 200. Even on a ton of gear, your actual protein needs are not that high. The excess isn’t building more muscle — you’re just making expensive urine.

Now, don’t get me wrong: more protein is usually harmless if you can digest it, and there are enhanced athletes who can process higher intake because of ramped-up protein turnover. But there is a limit. There’s a point where more doesn’t do jack.

The Stakes for Keeping the Myth Alive

So why do we keep hearing the same stale story about 1 to 1.5 grams per pound? Because it’s easy. Because no one questions it. Because supplement companies have a vested interest in keeping you chugging more powder. And because somewhere in a Gold’s Gym locker room, a 260-pound monster once said it worked for him. And that, my friend, is how a myth is born.

If you ask me, I’m going to tell you to calculate your protein intake off your lean mass. One gram per pound of lean mass is more than enough for most lifters — even the big ones. Want to get fancier? Cycle your protein down slightly in the off-season when you’re fatter, and back up when you’re getting peeled. That way you actually feed the tissue that matters, not the chub you plan on sweating off anyway. Either way, cut it back — you’re eating too much!

If you build your diet around a lower amount of protein, you’ll end up with less food overall, and you’ll probably stop overeating and carrying around so much needless body fat. You’ll be starving all the time and cranky, but you’ll be leaner, tighter, and just as strong — not to mention healthier, and you’ll have an easier time of it, pre-contest. But you will be smaller… oh boy. Therein, my friends, lies the rub and the route to sabotage. Smaller? But I wanna be HUGE!!! And you probably don’t want to lift heavy weights either.

We should first take a look at sharing the perception of “huge.” To me, huge is over six feet, over 275, and ripped — that’s huge. So is 5’9’’ and 195, peeled to the bone. Regardless of the poundage, it’s the condition that counts. Because “huge” can also be either of those examples, but replace “ripped” and “peeled” with 30% body fat.

Remaining Big While Being ‘Smaller’

The biggest reality a competitive bodybuilder must face is that as they get leaner, they are concomitantly going to get smaller. Because bodybuilders are programmed to believe more is more, this is difficult to swallow; they believe they are losing muscle because they’re not eating enough. Ughhhh… Here’s the reality: I always use prime rib as an example. Next time you’re food shopping, head over to the meat section and look for a nice big three- or four-bone prime rib roast. Look at its cross-section. See that giant glob of fat between the cap and the eye? Imagine peeling the roast apart and removing that giant glob of fat and rolling the roast back up. You’ll notice it’s smaller, right? BECAUSE YOU TOOK OUT THE FAT! Not because you lost muscle.

Now, imagine if you could just diet off the subcutaneous fat and leave the intramuscular fat. Wouldn’t that be nice? Sure would. So would finding the keys to a brand-spanking-new Porsche Turbo S in my Christmas stocking. Both are a fallacy. When the body stimulates lipolysis, the fat stores are converted to fatty acids and enter the bloodstream systemically. You can’t differentiate between sub-Q and intramuscular — it either comes from all over or not at all. So, yes, if you lower your body fat percentage, you will get smaller. If you’re either getting stronger or maintaining your strength, you’re not losing muscle.

And that right there is your best metric — strength. Maintaining or increasing strength directly correlates to muscle mass. You’ll be surprised at how few calories you need to do that. Even on juice.

Don’t believe me? Try it. What do you have to lose?