If you love the Reebok CrossFit Games, odds are that you’ve wondered how on Earth Sam Dancer is so strong.
Dancer came in second place at the 2014 Reebok CrossFit® Games when he was competing as part of CrossFit Conjugate, an affiliate based in Ohio. In 2016, he qualified and competed as an individual.
He’s been known to deadlift 655 pounds (297 kilograms) in competition — albeit with some pretty significant hitching.
We’ve also watched Dancer hang clean 405 pounds (183.7 pounds), a feat so impressive we wrote a whole article on it last November.
So when CrossFit HQ posted a video that’s all about how the mighty Sam Dancer warms up, we knew we had to watch it.
Now, this video comes with a serious disclaimer: this is how one guy warms up. Maybe that was obvious, but this is a seriously unusual warmup, particularly if you plan to take this approach for every workout of the week. You can watch it below.
As always, the CrossFit® Youtube channel has put together a video with seriously high production value, and it starts with Dancer outlining his basic warmup philosophy.
I’ll throw some weight on and once it feels heavy and I feel like I’m losing positioning and stuff, I’ll go do something else.
As the video progresses, you see Dancer lift, add weight, lift, add weight, and keep on going until, basically, he can’t go any heavier.
In a lot of ways, this is a delight to behold. The man winds up front squatting 455 pounds (206 freaking metric kilograms) and then goes on to power clean 315 pounds (142.8 kilograms) and snatch 265 pounds (120 kilograms).
This is what he considers warm-up, but he’s going to failure on these lifts. Dancer seems to feel that by warming up this way, he can get a good idea as to whether or not his body is ready to lift heavy or if he should back off for that particular training session.
You might have some pretty strong thoughts about whether or not you should go to failure during a warmup — or if, indeed, that even counts as a warmup set.
On our end, we’re just happy to hear a different approach to warming up. And we’ll always take the chance to watch someone front squat that many plates.
Featured image via CrossFit® on YouTube.
