Athletes
What’s up guys and girls. By way of introduction my name is Ian Daniel. Or you may know me as Ian the Rhino from Instagram. Born and raised in Florida, currently living in Miami. I’m 29 years old, sitting at a stout 5’8”, 113kg/249 lbs. I’ve been a lifelong athlete, who grew up playing soccer, baseball, gymnastics, and transitioned to strength and contact sports around the age of 12 years old. It was then that I started lifting weights, and began playing American football up through high school, where I also participated in track, field, and wrestling. I’ve swam competitively, cycled competitively and raced in the sport of triathlon as well. Upon entering college, I naturally found the sport of CrossFit in 2011, where after 2 months I qualified for my first regional competition as an individual, for those of you who remember those OG days. I competed locally in 30+ competitions, making the podium in nearly all of them, whilst obtaining my Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Graduating in 2014, I then began work in the ICU of several local hospitals over the next few years. Around this time that I was sought out by a local CrossFit team with ambitions of competing at the 2016 CrossFit Games. It was here that I was introduced to a truly demanding, mentally and physically elite level of training where I would credit a lot of my mindset regarding competition and discipline comes from.
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Our team qualified and competed in the 2016 and 2017 CrossFit games. During this process, my own personal struggle was that I was too muscular. At 220 lbs., minimal bodyfat, and not exceptionally tall, I was held back by my size – I was simply too heavy to run under a 6 minute mile. However, I was only lifting weights twice a week, and doing primarily conditioning! I should have been getting smaller and weaker right?! Instead I had a 725kg total without specifying for strength. I was running 1.6km in 6:30, Squatting 272.5kg or 100kg x 101 reps straight, deadlifting 310kg, rowing a 6:46 2000 meters, with seemingly infinite work capacity. It was around mid-2017 that I transitioned to the sport of Powerlifting where I felt that I would naturally excel and go in the direction I felt my genetics would help me rather than hinder me.
That was two and a half years ago. Since then I have learned SO much from not only CrossFit, but the sport of powerlifting as well, while applying my medical knowledge to maintain as optimal of a state of health as possible while pursuing elite strength numbers. I have officially competed in five powerlifting meets, going from 1600, to 1640, to 1813, to 1901, to 2001 most recently (measured in pounds, sorry people). My best numbers ever are: 357.5kg squat, 210kg benchpress, and a 345kg deadlift. I’ve lifted in the Animal cage, deadlifting 320kg for nine reps. I’ve been surrounded by and brushed shoulders with some of the most intelligent and ambitious minds in fitness, from the top of powerlifting, to CrossFit, to strongman, to bodybuilding, it has truly been a rewarding journey. I’ve taken some of the most key aspects of each sport from my involvement with each, applying them to my own practice and toolbox as an athlete to allow me to excel exceptionally quickly at whatever athletic endeavor I choose to pursue. These sports are not separate from each other. They are intertwined, and every athlete of each sport can stand to learn from the training and lifestyle of athletes of other sports, adapting critical practices from other sports to their own, making them knowledgeable in the realm of human performance.
Some of my beliefs counter traditional methodology about strength, about conditioning, about diet, and about lifestyle. I like to challenge others in the realm of self-honesty with their own effort, discipline, mindset, and health. Ultimately, I’m a believer that you should approach physical ability from a holistic standpoint. Powerlifters and Strongmen should chase conditioning and flexibility. Marathon runners should put a barbell on their back. CrossFitters need to eat WAY more carbs and periodize intensity. Weightlifters need to benchpress and low bar squat. EVERYONE should sleep more than 8 hours a night. And ALL of them need to chase their sport of choice from a foundation of health and life balance. Because ultimately, in the big picture of things, we are all chasing fulfillment and you can’t have that if you come home from the gym to a broke bank account and poor relationships with friends and family because you’re not attending to those parts of your life.