Tanned, toned and striking a confident pose, Elizabeth Smart beamed with pride in her tiny navy bikini and lucite heels.
Flexing her hard-earned muscles, it was a very different version of the woman who has spent the past two decades sharing her harrowing abduction ordeal with the world.
The child safety advocate – who was abducted as a teen and put through months of brutal sexual and physical abuse – revealed she has quietly been competing in and winning bodybuilding contests, having recently placed first in a Salt Lake City competition last weekend.
The 38-year-old shared images of herself on Instagram, writing: ‘When I posted the pictures in my story of me standing on stage in a bikini it probably shocked many of you, and I understand the shock because had you asked me if I would ever compete in a bodybuilding show a couple of years ago I would have said, “Absolutely not! Never in 100 years!”‘
Even more shocking, she explained it was actually her fourth time competing. ‘I am so proud of myself for doing this. I am so proud of my body, and I want to celebrate it,’ she wrote.
The remarkable photos signaled a new era for Smart, who was just 14 when she was abducted from bed in her family home in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2002 at knifepoint before being subjected to months of horrifying physical and sexual abuse. But the mother-of-three also unwittingly exposed a coping mechanism that she and other women have turned to following traumatic life experiences.
She wrote: ‘My body has carried me through every worst day, every hellish grueling experience, it’s created and nurtured three beautiful children, my body has risen to every single challenge life has presented it with, and carried me through so I refuse to be ashamed of it.’
Weightlifting has seen an explosion in America, with roughly one in three adults regularly pumping iron thanks to research touting its benefits for overall health and longevity. There are also mental health benefits to strength training, proven to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, which may account for the uptick in women’s competitive weightlifting over the past few years.

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The remarkable photos signaled a new era for Smart (center)

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Smart, pictured with her husband and three children, revealed she has been competing in bodybuilding competitions and recently shared photos from her events

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Smart was a child when she was abducted from her home in June 2002

Erica Hepperle, 33, first turned to bodybuilding as a fitness route after graduating college, where she was drinking heavily, and wanted to ‘get [her] stuff together.’
But bodybuilding, she told the Daily Mail, was also an act of her subconscious: ‘I actually didn’t know that I went into it to mask a trauma.’
‘I had been sexually violated in college twice,’ she said. ‘[I thought] well, if I’m strong, if I look physically fit and people think that I could beat them up, ultimately, then I’m never going to be screwed with. No one’s ever going to violate me, no one’s ever going to cross my boundaries.’
Hepperle was a bodybuilder from 2014 to 2019 and lives in Los Angeles, ‘the mecca of bodybuilding,’ she said. She is now a somatic practitioner and ceremonial pelvic care specialist who works with women who have been through trauma.
Having put her bodybuilding hobby aside due to its ‘obsessive’ qualities, she now recognizes it as a ‘protective strategy’ used as a ‘coping mechanism or coping pattern.’
‘There’s typically people in bodybuilding are rooted in some sort of trauma that they then take their bodies to the extreme for some reason within themselves,’ she said, adding that someone who has been through ‘big trauma’ like Elizabeth Smart likely have ‘this survival pattern imprinted in her nervous system.’
Hepperle said: ‘She could be doing this because, well, unconsciously, she, you know, was taken and she never got to fight for herself or fight for her body or fight for her sovereignty. It could be just like her survival patterns of not being able to do the things that she wanted to do at that age, and she’s kind of now going after and accomplishing goals.’
‘Ultimately it comes down to most humans live their lives in survival, and we’re operating off of those survival strategies.’
Having endured one of the most terrifying ordeals that one could fathom, Smart was held captive and repeatedly sexually assaulted for nine months by Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, until she was found in 2003.
Even in her darkest moments, Smart recently said she never lost hope of being rescued, fighting back against her captors’ brutal abuse.

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Hepperle (pictured) was a bodybuilder from 2014 to 2019

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Hepperle (pictured) told the Daily Mail: ‘[I thought] well, if I’m strong, if I look physically fit and people think that I could beat them up, ultimately, then I’m never going to be screwed with. No one’s ever going to violate me, no one’s ever going to cross my boundaries.’

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Hepperle (pictured) first turned to bodybuilding as a fitness route after graduating college

Shari Botwin, a licensed clinical social worker who has spent 30 years counseling victims of trauma and abuse, told the Daily Mail that she’s seen many survivors who, like Smart, found an outlet through sports like weightlifting, running marathons, kickboxing, self-defense training or karate.
‘They try to find a way to regain that control. Not just over what they think, but control over their bodies, what they put in their bodies, and how they treat their bodies… Being able to reclaim that sense of control can be transformative for survivors.’
And as Hepperle said, Botwin also agreed that having physical strength ‘makes people feel like they have more armor and more protection,’ especially after trauma.
‘When you’re in those sports and you feel, ‘I have the strength, my body is more mine now. God forbid I’m ever in a situation again where I’m unsafe, at least I know I could maybe fight back.’
‘Just being able to have that ability to say, “I’m going to do this and be successful, and I’m going to walk around in a body that feels stronger,” that can be empowering. It helps some people be able to leave their house and interact with others.’
But along with that pride and empowerment, Botwin said, survivors often ‘struggle with feelings of guilt and shame’ because ‘loss of control in the body is one of the most painful pieces of recovery.’
It could be why Smart – who has shared her story worldwide, most recently in the Netflix documentary, Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart – kept her bodybuilding passion close to her chest.
She wrote on Instagram: ‘I was too afraid to post it before. Worried that I would be judged, not taken seriously, somehow perceived as less than or now unworthy to continue work as an advocate for all survivors. Then this past weekend it struck me how eerily familiar these feelings and thoughts are for too many survivors.’

Elizabeth Smart sits down with Daily Mail 23 years after her kidnap

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Smart said the realization that those fears mirrored what many survivors experience pushed her to finally go public. She is pictured here in June 2025

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Smart was held captive and repeatedly sexually assaulted for nine months by Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, until she was found in 2003

One such survivor is Roya Karimi, a former child bride who escaped Afghanistan 15 years ago. Today, she competes on the biggest stages in the bodybuilding world, having found salvation in the intense physical training, but is constantly reminded of her past.
Karimi finished school at the age of 13 and, just one year later, was forced into an arranged marriage. Less than a year later, she was pregnant with her son.
‘Every time I go to the gym, I remember that there was a time in Afghanistan when I wasn’t even allowed to exercise freely,’ Karimi told BBC News Afghan.
‘People only see my appearance and my bikini. But behind this appearance, there are years of suffering, effort and perseverance. These successes have not come easily.’
Similarly, weightlifting also offered reprieve for Jeannette Feliciano, a survivor of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, one of the deadliest mass shootings in the US, in Orlando, Florida.
Speaking to POV Magazine, she explained that she ‘took to working out at a very young age’ having gone ‘through a lot of abuse and trauma growing up.’
‘Working out was my only outlet. It was my way to get away,’ Feliciano said. ‘When it came to the healing, it’s my only way to let go of the weight. If there are days that I want to flip out and curse at the weight, that’s what I do. Ultimately, we go back into this negative world, this constant negativity, and we have to find ways to release.’
Smart, now one of the most prominent advocates for child safety and survivors of sexual violence, had similar sentiments about her newfound passion for bodybuilding.
She wrote: ‘It was hard, it pushed me, challenged me not to give up. I only hope that we all find the courage to chase new experiences, goals, bettering ourselves, and most importantly happiness.’

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‘Every time I go to the gym, I remember that there was a time in Afghanistan when I wasn’t even allowed to exercise freely,’ Karimi (pictured) previously explained

This, Botwin said, is also why Smart sharing her bodybuilding journey is so impactful.
‘It’s a deep-rooted pain. So I understand why they don’t just talk about it in therapy – they actually have to do something to make a difference. We are seeing [Smart] actually taking action.’
Botwin said not all survivors take to bodybuilding and instead ‘use their bodies in other ways to reclaim’ themselves, like dancing, singing or any outlet with a ‘physical and emotional release’ to make life better.
‘You can’t change the past, but you can certainly have your life, moving forward, be yours. You can still find ways to find peace, comfort and resilience,’ Botwin added.
For Smart, who placed first in the novice category, third in the Masters 35+ division and second in Class D at the Wasatch Warrior event in Salt Lake City, that’s exactly what she’s doing.
She wrote: ‘I refuse to feel embarrassed about trying something new and am embracing my chance at life to the absolute fullest I can. As I get older I realize more and more how important it is to make the most of today, we don’t know what tomorrow brings.’