Danielle Speegle is competing in a CrossFit competition – in her exercise clothes. In a new social media post the athlete shows off her amazing body in a two-piece workout set. “War wounds and all,” she captioned the series of Instagram snaps. “i love watching youuuu,” commented one of her followers while several others added fire emojis. How does she approach diet, fitness, and self-care? Here is everything you need to know about her lifestyle habits.
Danielle is a big coffee drinker. She starts her day with a pre-workout coffee and then after she exercises has another, a latte with oat milk and a shot and half sweet that she picks up at her local coffee shop. In the afternoon she grabs a coffee from the fridge, she told Muscle & Fitness. According to the Cleveland Clinic, there are several benefits of drinking coffee in moderation. “It acts on your brain to improve memory, mood, reaction times, and mental function,” they say, citing a study finding that caffeine can improve endurance and performance during exercise. It is also antioxidant-rich, can ward off diabetes, prevent neurologic disease, lower cancer risk, and ward off depression, they point out.
Her frst meal is a protein shake (Dymatize usually cocoa pebbles flavor followed by a post-workout Dymatize ISO 100 shake and Gatorade to replenish ATP and glucose levels after her workout session. For lunch she has a meal from Trifecta. “Trifecta has made things so easy,” she says. “Usually, the morning session is a huge portion of the training day. Then I have some interval work and by the time lunch rolls around, I’m exhausted and ready to fall over. I remember when I first started upping my volume and training to make this a profession. Eating was so difficult. I would just end up eating what was easy and convenient. It was more snacking than fueling my body because the thought of coming home and cooking was the worst. I wasn’t fueling myself properly for the first year. To be able to come home and pop one thing into the microwave is so easy. They have the a la cart options, so I have my carb, vegetables, and proteins — you can just pop things into the air fryer or microwave and it’s ready to go. Occasionally, we’ll have our pizza night but since I started working with Trifecta, I literally haven’t had anything else to eat.”
In the morning she spends 20 minutes reading. “I usually wake up and there’s a book in my hand,” Speegle says. “My nose is literally in a book as I’m pressing buttons on the coffee machine. I love escaping the world and getting into a book and not thinking about everything that I have to do during the day. So that’s the quiet before the storm. Usually, the dog will go outside, or I’ll play fetch, but a lot of the time, the priority is the coffee and the reading. I’m pretty eclectic with my choice of books. I’ll read everything from the most popular to the smutty, Tik Tok stuff.”
She starts with a warmup, foam roller work, followed by elastic band work to stretch out and open her shoulders. Then she does a Metcon workout, consisting of strength (squats, cleans, snatches, deadlifts) and pulling work (gymnastic stuff, mobility, bodybuilding, sandbag hold to work on posterior hang strength to work on core). “I think with any CrossFit, it’s kind of you just want to get to the end because no matter what, it’s painful,” Speegle says. “You’re trying to get to the end, but you also analyze the workout, you know the things you can attack, what you need to work on, and the aspects of a workout you need to push yourself in. You always have this goal that you have going in. Everything is four times each, so it’s how can I get through this the fastest way possible while being efficient and getting better?” Her second session starts off with cardio-based strength and more strength under fatigue. Timed intervals and focused on endurance training. “Every single day, you leave and you’re walking to the car just dreading driving home because you’re so tired (laughs),” she says. “A lot of the accessory work is to strengthen the shoulder girdle, which to me, is a little bit of the recovery work. It’s making sure my shoulders are prepared for the next day. Stretching with bands, rolling out — that’s the decompressing part and letting my body relax.”
At the end of the day she does atretching at the gym. Then, when she gets home she gets several bags of ice. She finishes the day off with a sauna and ice bath recovery session. There is limited research supporting the benefits of cold plunges, which may include easing sore muscles, bringing body temperature down, increased focus, improved sleep, and decreased inflammation, per the Cleveland Clinic. However, a 2021 study found that cold water immersion therapy promotes basic post-sport recovery.