Dan Bailey now a box-hold name in CrossFit debuted in 2010 as a rookie to CrossFit where he caught everyone by surprise. Bailey didn’t give up although he missed the cut to make it out of Regionals that year.
However, after a year of hard work, Dan surprised the community placing 1st Worldwide in the first ever CrossFit Games Open in 2011. He would go on to place 1st at his Central East Regional and then 6th at his first Games appearance.
Dan has managed to qualify for the Games every year since. What’s even more impressive is that he has never placed outside of the top 10 at the Games, with last year being his strongest effort finishing in 4th overall, just 36 points behind Björgvin who landed on the podium in 3rd.
Not only is Bailey known for his outstanding performance as an Elite CrossFit Games athlete (he can do “Grace” in 1:01), but he’s quite popular for his ridiculously jacked physique, Danny Broflex videos, and being just an all-around awesome and humble guy.
With experience as a top collegiate athlete in Track & Field, BS degree in Physical Education and a Masters in Fitness & Wellness, his programming is simple yet masterful.
Focus on endurance
With 2015 being his best placement at the Games, if you’re wondering, what did Bailey do differently compared to previous years? Bailey explains:
“I put a larger focus on my endurance training last year. What I mean by that is all types of endurance training. Running, swimming, rowing, and trying to cover longer duration CrossFit workouts weekly in my training.”
“I’ve tried to up the ante even more with endurance training this year, and have suffered some small but chronic injuries as a result. That’s part of the game, and things like that have helped me learn more about myself and how I need to train to optimize my results.”
For reference, here’s a look into the past 6 months of his endurance training. He’s Rowed over 173 km, Ran over 77 km, and performed 2330 Calories on an Assault Bike. These three movements were his top 3 for Monostructural work.
It’s all about the basics
Bailey has done the Olympic Lifts way more than any other lift. For comparison, he has Clean & Jerked423 reps for a total of 80,800 lbs (equivalent of 20 average-sized cars) while Back Squatting 240 reps totaling 77,300 lbs.
This averages out to 191 lbs and 322 lbs per rep respectively. On the Gymnastics side, he’s done a ton of GHD Sit-ups, Muscle-ups, and Push-ups, doing 486 reps, 1160 reps, and 1218 reps respectively. Not only is he really strong, his gymnastics are on point too.
If you wanna be like Dan Bailey (or even a portion), keep your training regime real and practise your foundation skills. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither was Dan Bailey.
Read more on Dan Bailey’s training at Beyond the Whiteboard.com.
