Take one look at the picture below. It’s ridiculous, right? This man is an MMA fighter, not a bodybuilder. Dalton Rosta is one of the most yoked fighters competing right now, but some of his ways to maintain his muscular physique might shock you. For instance, he doesn’t lift weights anymore.
“It’s partially genetics. I played football growing up, so I was always in the weight room from the time I was nine years old. I was taking creatine, protein, amino acid, everything. Back then, people didn’t start dabbling into that until they were in high school. My dad had me taking it at nine, ten years old, as soon as they got done lifting. I built up a lot of muscle. I was a lot heavier than I am right now back then. I was up 240 pounds at one time,” Rosta told Cageside Press in an exclusive interview. “I’ve been dieting down, obviously to get down to 185, and now I walk around at 205 now. So, genetics plus the muscle mass from all the years of training and lifting that I did was built back then.”
“I’ve lost a lot of muscle mass over the past few years from not lifting weights anymore. I also changed my diet and all my training and everything. However, because of that, I also lost a lot of fat as well.”
With Rosta looking the way he does, he gets accused of taking steroids every time he posts a picture on social media. It comes with the territory, unfortunately. It doesn’t bug him too much though.
“I get accused of taking steroids most of the time, but if people saw what I looked when I was 240 pounds, they would really think I was taking steroids. They would accuse me of taking everything in the f*cking book. But, I’m clean, I don’t even lift weights, and people can say what they want,” Rosta said.
With Rosta not lifting weights anymore, the 26-year old explained how he keeps his incredible physique.
“Some of its genes but a lot of it is all of the hard work and muscle that I built up over the years. The training that I do now, wrestling, grappling, boxing— you use all those muscles, but it’s cardio-intensive, so I lost a lot of weight and not just fat loss muscle too. So I’m not as muscular as I was. But, of course, I’m going to be super lean, and that’s why people are going to think I’m on steroids. But, for the amount of muscle mass I have at 185 pounds, I mean, I don’t blame them,” Rosta said.
“But, yeah, that’s really what it is. I don’t lift weights, but I can still go to the gym and put up 315 lbs for ten reps. Like, I could go to the weight room right now while I’m on the phone and put that weight up. It is a natural ability, plus all that time and effort that I put into lifting weights over the years. I retained a lot of it, but I lost a lot, don’t get me wrong, but you retain a lot of it as well.”
Rosta (5-0) returns to the Bellator cage for the sixth time this weekend at Bellator 273. He was scheduled against top ten middleweight Romero Cotton; however, Cotton pulled out of the fight. He now faces Duane Johnson. For Rosta, the goal will remain the same; he plans to knock him out and keep him his climb towards the top of the division.
Dalton Rosta vs. Romero Cotton goes down at Bellator 273 this Saturday, January 29, 2022, at the Footprint Center in Phoenix, Arizona.
