Danielle Brandon: Her Crossfit Workouts, Diet And Training
Danielle Brandon is getting a lot of attention during the 2021 Crossfit Games for all different reasons. She’s a rising star in the sport who has finished in the top 15 of the Crossfit Games in 2019 and 2020 while training out of Underdog Athletics in Las Vegas. During the 2021 Games, two of her teammates tested positive for Covid 19 and Danielle was kept separated from the other athletes while she was tested daily.
She’s put up an in impressive performance and won Event 8, the handstand walk obstacle course. Danielle may be the model for the next level type of Crossfit athletes. With a background in track and field with some gymnastics as well, Danielle has shown an ability to win running based heats and this can be a sign of things to come.
Running is still the biggest areas that fails many top Cossfit competitors. It’s just something that you need to work consistently hard at often, aerobic endurance is going to leave you faster than anaerobic strength.
Let’s take a look at some of Daneielle Brandons Crossfit workouts to see what we can learn.
Accessory work is more than accessory work.
Here you see Danielle doing what she calls “successory” work, overhead reverse lunges. Most people would consider this a main lift and train it sparingly but Danielle knows she needs to improve her overhead strength.
Danielle just wasn’t eating enough
As is the case with most Crossfit athletes and people looking to optimize body composition, they just don’t eat enough carbohydrates to support their hard training. Danielle has started working with a new nutrition coach and feels that eating more calories helps her perform better.
That's the problem with competitive Crossfit. Most athletes just don't eat enough food to sustain their pace and amount of training. While we normally do advocate a low carb, high fat diet, we're also fans of adjusting based off your personal goals.
We even advocate specific keto pre workout diets should that be your goals.
Get cardio in when you can.
Don’t think of running as running. Think of it as building an aerobic base. Danielle has a Rogue Echo bike so she will often hammer out some extra interval work.
Don’t skip your metcons.
Here’s two recent metcons Danielle shared on Instagram
2 RDS 30 KB SWINGS 70/53 40 TTB 50 burpees to target 60/50 CAL ROW 🥵 then hit an 8 min emom: 1. 1-3 MU 2. 1-3 SMU -rest 2:00- 12 mu for time!!! 🤯 & of course TEMPO DB OVHS W/ the 100# 💁🏼♀️🥳
5x -5 DBALL over the shoulder • 15 burpees • 1 legless (20ft) • 50 ft DBALL carry- 1 set every 3:00 🥵
Success Leaves Clues
Danielle Brandon knows what works for her. Take those lessons and try to add them to your own programming.