March Madness Predictions From My Resident NCAA Hoops Expert…
March 13, 2012 by danny · 2 Comments
I’m going to make this one short and sweet. My good friend, Jeff Rinaldi, who has contributed to many roundtables (MLB, college basketball multiple times, NFL, NBA) on DannyMcLarty.com over the years, is back for more today. So let’s get right to the questions…
The best tournament of them all!
Danny: Give us two teams that you think have the best chance of being this years Cinderella Story.
Jeff: As always the bracket is brutal again. After over studying it like I always do, two teams stick out to me as potential Cinderellas at the price of two Big-10 teams. I actually like New Mexico St. to knock out Indiana in the 1st round and also like Ohio to sting Michigan as well as either or Temple or the winner of the 12/12 game in that region. I think Ohio may get to the sweet 16.
Danny: Which #2 seed will be the first to lose?
Jeff: I definitely think Duke is the weakest #2 seed. They will get by Lehigh but could struggle against Xavier or Notre Dame. Even if they get to the sweet 16 I think they lose to Baylor. They are going down early this year.
Danny: Jeff, since you are Kentucky graduate, of course you are going to pick UK (and it doesn’t hurt that they are loaded). So, if you couldn’t pick Kentucky, who would you go with to cut down the nets this year?
Jeff: Of course I am picking my Kentucky Wildcats to win it all. However, I think Mizzou is very dangerous and would pick them to cut the nets down if it wasn’t for the Cats. Mizzou scares me and should scare everyone else in the field except Kentucky of course.
Danny: Man Jeff, we are on the same page there – I love Mizzou’s guard play and also think they are a dangerous team. I’m hoping my Tarheels step up and take it all!
Thanks again Jeff! I’m sure I’ll be getting a hold of you for your great insight down the line…
So, what do you think of Jeff’s predictions? Who do you think will win it all this year? Do you have any upset specials in mind? Let us hear them in the comments section below.
Go Tarheels!!!
Basketball, Training, Nutrition, Life…
February 7, 2012 by danny · 2 Comments
How we go…
1) I’m playing in a basketball league on Monday nights (35 and older league – that feels weird to say!). Last night was the first round of the playoffs (we have the #1 seed, just sayin’) and we were told the game started at 7:30. Well, it actually started at 7:00. So the refs said if you don’t start in 2 minutes you must forfeit. We had 3 guys there and another one of our players just happened to come watch… he recently tore his achilles tendon and was in a boot. The rules state that you must start the game with 4 players, so he walked out on the court in his street clothes for the tip and just stood there ’til the first dead ball, then walked back into the bleachers to watch. So that put us at 3 vs 5 for the first 5 minutes of the game until our 4th and 5th players showed up.
Our strategy? Dribble around and stall as much as possible until the other guys arrived. And it worked great! By the time they showed up, we were only down 6-3 (and that counts the 2 point technical foul we got right off the bat as our player with the achilles injury was not in “proper uniform”). We ended up getting the W, but it was much closer than the rest of the games.
Championship game in two weeks – I’ll let you know the outcome…
2) In a blogpost that I made the other day, I mention that I performed Bret Contreras’s,”The Sexy Challenge.” It went well and I actually wasn’t as sore as I thought I’d be… until day 2’s DOMS set in! I mentioned that I like to perform a challenge like this from time to time, but if done too frequently it can lead to set-backs. I performed the challenge last Thursday and my training program had me scheduled to do legs that Saturday (2 days after the challenge). Yeah right! My hammies were killing me so I flip-flopped a day in my program and did upper body on that Saturday instead. Sunday came around and I was still very sore. So, I FINALLY got that leg day in yesterday (Monday). This is exactly why I’m not a fan of doing this kind of “test” or “challenge” more than 2-3 times per year… it ends up messing with your program design and throws everything off for awhile (and has you limping around for days). I’m still glad I did it, but again, I won’t be doing anything like this for quite some time.
3) My wife just landed a very good as the General Manager at Mario Tricoci (hair salon for those of you that don’t keep up on these sort of things 
). I’ll still be able to train clients in the morning out of my basement, give basketball lessons on the weekends, continue my social media obligations, and write training programs for my on-line clients. BUT, I’ll be putting in a larger amount of time as “Mr. Mom” until we get day care ‘n all that figured out.
Going to be fun hanging with the twins, but if my hair is completely grey the next time you see me, now you know why!
4) Football is over, so it’s time for basketball to take center-stage. Let’s hope Deng can stay healthy, Rip can GET healthy, and D. Rose keeps on killlin’ it! I can’t wait for that Chicago-Miami rematch!!!
5) I’ve got some GREAT nutrition information to share with you all next week. A few times I’ve given you a sample day of what my eating looks like. Well, I thought it would be cool and beneficial to see a couple other examples from other people. My good friends Marci Nevin and Michelle Adams agreed to share a food log of what they eat for a day. It will be great for females to see what a couple other VERY healthy and very fit chicks eat while attempting to reach their health and physique goals!
And finally, I’ll be posting a nutrition interview that I did with Brian St. Pierre (one of my favorite “nutrition guys”).
So make sure you don’t miss all this great content – be sure to pop in next week to check it out.
Until next time…
Fitness Magazines – Here Is Why You Want To Work With Me…
January 30, 2012 by danny · 2 Comments
Dear Sir or Madam,
I’m Danny McLarty and I want to you let you know all of the reasons that you want me to write about health and fitness for your audience. I’ve been a Fitness Coach and Strength and Conditioning Coach for about 15 years now. Over the course of my career I’ve trained thousands of clients and helped them reach their health and physique goals. My clientele have come to me with a wide range of goals… fat loss, muscle gain, sports performance, rehab from injury, to prepare for physique shows, to prepare for strength competitions (i.e. powerlifting meet) and to simply feel better. This “in the trenches” experience in addition to the countless hours that I spend studying, attending seminars, and reading fitness articles, books, and journals puts me among the elite when it comes to giving my clients and readers the best opportunity to reach their goals.
I’m a, practice what I preach, kind of individual and definitely take great pride in my personal health and physique. Here are some of my pictures from a post I did on my website just last week; “My Photo Shoot.” I believe staying in great shape helps give a fitness coach and writer credibility. And “living the life” is something that has been in me for years and will be the case for the rest of my life.
I am also a “Basketball Skills Coach,” helping players improve their overall game (with an emphasis on dribbling and shooting). Standing 5′7″ and going up against many players standing well over 6 feet tall had many people questioning me and my game over the years. Me and my family would hear rumblings from others that would say; “yeah, he’s pretty good now, but there is no way that he is going to be able to succeed at the next level.” But whenever that “next level” came around, I continued to succeed. I ended up getting a full ride basketball scholarship and in 2007 was inducted into the Illinois Basketball Hall of Fame. My “story” has inspired many as I’ve proven to them that hard work and dedication can go along way in achieving your dreams.
Finally, I’ve been published in a number of on-line health, fitness, and basketball magazines. My writing experience will help me continue to put out great work and make you proud to have me on your team.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Respectfully,
Danny McLarty
“Follow Through” when DRIBBLING the Basketball
January 18, 2012 by danny · Leave a Comment
When I work with basketball players I always emphasize the concept of “following through” when dribbling the basketball… kind of like when you you shoot the ball. I could explain more but, it’s easier to do in video…
I haven’t done many basketball posts lately, but I plan on adding more skill related posts in the future. If you are a player or have a son/daughter that plays, make sure you share this video with them… it will go a long way in helping him/her better develop those handles (the good kind of handles ).
If you have any questions or thoughts, please leave a comment below.
Happy handling!
2011: The Year That Was…
December 21, 2011 by danny · Leave a Comment
Once again, the end of the year is already here! It’s time to reflect on what we did, what we are proud of, and what we could do better going forward. As a reminder, when you sit down to write your resolutions, focus on your behaviors rather than your goals. For example, if you want to lose 10 pounds by February 14th, write down the behaviors that will help get you there…
1) I will eat 6 + servings of fruits and VEGGIES per day.
2) I will train with weights 3 times per week and get 2 additional cardio sessions in.
3) I will eat (pick your vice) only 1 time per week – max.
Focusing on your behaviors will give you the road map to reach your goals.
2011
2011 was a BIG year for me… life changing! Let’s take a look at some of the bigger events that stood out – both training and non-training.
-In January me and my friend’s Marci and Jason flew down to Arizona for some fun and some education. Marci and I visited Bret Contreras and his garage gym. It was great and we picked up a lot of great information from Bret! I reviewed our time with Bret, here… My Visit With Bret Contreras.
-My favorite interview of the year was the one I did with Jen Comas Keck. She’s one bad ass girl! You can read more about it here… Girl Gone Strong.
-As 2011 kept moving on, Shondra went from pregnant, to VERY PREGNANT!
You'd think there was two in there!
-The BIGGEST day of my life happened on May 27th, 2011 (at 8:02 and 8:03 a.m. – in case you were wondering ) …
-This was a fun little interview I did with the Rockford Register Star.
-I continued my work, writing for FitStudio.
-I became a FitFluential Ambassador. Chief Execute Officer and Founder, Kelly Olexa asked for a blog post directed to those new to fitness. This is what I came up with … Dear Young Fitness Friends.
-I had to say goodbye to a my good friends in California.
Good times. Good friends.
-Although it was hard, I was excited to head back “home” and get our babies closer to family.
The reason we came back to Illinois!
-Da Bears looked great early on. Then Jay Cutler got hurt. Then Da Bears started stinking up the joint. Then I cried.
-Da Bulls showed A LOT of promise and I’m excited about their future. D. Rose is a stud and he just signed a contract extension. I smiled.
-The Cubs picked up Theo Epstein, which has many of us Cub fans really excited. BUT, we are still the Cubs – so I only half smiled.
-After arriving in Illinois, I started training people out of my basement, continued training clients on-line, and have been busy giving basketball lessons and clinics. I continue to add equipment to the basement, but here is what it looked like early on…
-My most “controversial” post/video of the year came when I posted a YouTube video, giving the reasons that I am not a fan of distance running (for most). Check out the video for my more in depth reasoning for this. But the short of it is; running is very high impact and very repetitive. So, the main point is, EXCESSIVE running is what I am not a fan of. However, “excessive,” may actually be less than you think…
I came across this article yesterday called, “America’s Scariest Fitness Trends.” Check out fitness trend #2, as Rachel Cosgrove talks about some of things I mention in the above video.
Below is just one (of an infinite amount of options) example of how to more evenly spread the joint stress throughout the entire body when getting your cardio in. Did I Beat My Previous Time?
-You know that I have to sneak in some basketball. Here’s another basketball article that I wrote for iHoops… “5 Intermediate Strength Training Lifts for Basketball Players”
-I’ve been so busy with life, babies, etc, that I haven’t played much b-ball lately. But I’m back in a league and starting to play a little more again. As I talk about in this post, My Body Is A Mess, I was not smart – the first time coming back to play, I ended up playing on back-to-back days and my body/blisters hated me all week…
My poor blisters!
Oh, and here are a couple updated pictures of Capri and Daxton…
And we had a pretty good deadliftingsession the other day. They struggled with gripping the kettlebell and with mastering the hip hinge, but I think they’ll get it soon enough. 
There is a whole lot more that I could include, but I don’t want to make this too long. In 2012 I look forward to helping you all with your health, performance, and physique goals. I look forward to continue spending time with my family and friends. And I look forward to ATTACKING my fitness goals as well! Remember to write down a few of the BEHAVIORS that will lead you to your goals!
Speaking of behaviors and goals, what are yours in 2012? Let me hear them.
My Body Is a Mess!
December 14, 2011 by danny · Leave a Comment
My bod is absolutely killing me. I did something earlier in the week that wasn’t very smart. I hadn’t played full court basketball in about 2 months. I have a group of friend’s that get together for pick up ball on Sunday mornings. Well, I’m usually giving basketball lessons on Sunday mornings. But I received a call from one of my b-ball clients saying that he was sick and unable to make it to our lesson. This opened up a time for me to get to the gym for some pick-up hoops.
My friend Aaron Sullivan opened up the gym for us and I got to see some friends that hadn’t seen in awhile. Everyone lined up for a free throw. First 5 to make their free throw was on one team, the second 5 to make their free throw was on the second team. I ended up being on the team of my long time friend’s Mark Beachey and Jim Ryan. My friend Jeb Blomquist and another guy that I didn’t know was on our team as well. The “rules” were the usual … you win, you stay on the court. Well, we won every game and ended up playing about 7 games. Great, I hadn’t played in forever, and on my first time back I ended up playing 7 games. It was great to play with my old buddies again, but believe me when I tell you that my knees, and hip flexors, hamstrings, low back, etc etc. we’re very sore the next day. And then maybe the worst part – the blisters on my feet were terrible! And this is only the half of it…
The next day I get a call from my friend, “Shinny.” He has been calling me for weeks to get me to play on his team (in a league) on Monday nights. I’ve repeatedly turned him down as I’ve been busy with work and the twins. But this time Shinny really gave it to me; “C’mon Danny, we need you! We may only have 4 guys and we’re playing one of the best teams in the leauge!” So I gave into him and drove down to Byron for the game. I knew I was in trouble when my blisters were killing me while getting in warm-up shots and while doing some dribbling before the game started. Long story short, I played the whole game (except for the couple minutes) and my right knee and my BLISTERS WERE KILLING ME. We won the game easily and it was a lot of fun to play with Shinny and my college coach, Carl Armato. But as I was driving home I was thinking, “what the heck was I thinking!?! Why’d I play on back to back nights after not playing in months!!!???!!!” Here is a picture of what my bloodied socks looked like when I took my basketball shoes off…
Bloody (and dirty) socks - my poor feet/blisters!!!
When I woke up on Tuesday morning, I could barely walk. The joints/muscles that I mentioned above were now hurting X 2.
Anyway, all of this brings me to my point; when you are hurting, doing nothing and just sitting on the couch all day to “rest and recover” is one of the worst things that you can do. I talked more about this in an older post I made on this topic in THIS POST. I actually brought a foam roller with me to the game and rolled before the game, at half time, and immediately after the game. After the 45 minute drive home from the game, I rolled again, and iced my knees. The next day I performed a bunch of light “active recovery drills.” When I lived in California I filmed an example of this…
Above, you see
-Goblet Squats
-Push-ups
-RDL/Bent Over Row (hybrid)
-Wall Hip Flexor Mobilizations (to address my tight quads)
-Hip Thrusts
-Reverse Lunge with Twist
So, moral of the story – don’t be dumb like me and out of nowhere perform an intense, high impact activity on BACK-TO-BACK days when you haven’t done that activity in months!
Second moral – when are really sore, INCLUDE ACTIVE RECOVERY EXERCISES to get the body moving and blood flowing. It will speed up the recovery process much faster than plopping on the couch all day, waiting for the pain to go away.
Do you have any favorite recovery methods after taking a beating from a tough training session(s)/game? Let me hear them…
My New iHoops Basketball Article…
October 20, 2011 by danny · Leave a Comment
Yes, the articles that I am about to go over were written for a basketball website. BUT, the information can be beneficial for anyone that is a) new to training, or b) exiting the “newbie” stage of training and transitioning to the “intermediate” stage.
Body weight training
My article, “Basketball Strength Training for Newbies” was published over a year ago. After iHoops published it, I received a bunch of e-mails and comments on the iHoops ’site from youngsters that went something like this; “the information in this article is great, but I need more. I’m new to lifting but want results FAST! What else do you have for me?” While I appreciate the enthusiasm, it is not smart to “skip steps.” Body weight exercises are all that most newbies need. But in time (if they are consistent), they need to start adding significant load (weight) to their lifts in order to get optimal results.
So, I decided to give these youngsters some more advanced exercises with some programming notes to go along with it. I just hope they spent some time working on building that “foundation” with the information I provided in “Basketball Strength Training for Newbies.”
Entering the intermediate stage
Ok, onto the new article that is now up on the iHoops website… “5 Intermediate Strength-Training Lifts for Basketball Players.” Again, if you’ve been working at the newbie level for awhile and you’re starting to transition into the intermediate stage, I think you’ll find this article useful (even if you are not a basketball player).
Enjoy - 5 Intermediate Strength-Training Lifts for Basketball Players
If you like the article, I’d appreciate it if you hit the like button below and/or gave me some love on twitter. Thank you!
Aerobics For Basketball Players?
October 12, 2011 by danny · 2 Comments
Back when I was playing hoops in college, in the pre-season our team was tested in the 1-mile run. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, other than, coach wants to see how good of shape we are in, so I’m going to run this thing as fast as I can. Fast forward a number of years later, and I started to learn more about the body. I learned about different energy systems and which ones are used for particular tasks that we perform when competing in sports, or when working out in general. And as I become more educated, I remember thinking; I wonder why our coach tested us in the mile??? I mean, there is never a point in the game where we run 5 + minutes without a break. Hmm?
Anyway, I now know the mile to pretty much be a pointless test for basketball players. Basically, we sprint up and down the court, get in a defensive stance, chase our opponent around a few screens, box him out when the shot goes up, and sprint down to the other end of the court, run our opponents off a screen or two, and this continues for a bit. OR, a whistle is blown due to a foul, the ball goes out of bounds, a coach calls a T.O., a brawl breaks out in the stands (ahem, Detroit Pistons fans ), or something similar. Regardless, there is a break in the action very often. So again, none of this even comes close to resembling a 1-mile run.
I even touched upon the topic in this article that I wrote a few years back (towards the end of the article where I mention fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibers). Strength Coach Charles Poliquin goes into a little further detail on the matter in his article, “Do Basketball Players Need Aerobics?”
With basketball season right around the corner (except for you NBA – come on, get it together!!!), coaches will be preparing their players with their conditioning program. Most basketball coaches know X’s and O’s, but are not qualified to run an “optimal” strength and conditioning program (understandably, as their time is spent recruiting, running camps, scouting, game planning, preparing for practice, etc etc.). Therefore, I’m hoping articles/blog posts like this will help steer these coaches in the right direction. So, if you are a basketball coach that’s about to start conditioning your players for the season, just remember, that basketball is a sport that is filled with a lot of starts and stops throughout the game.
Testing your athletes or simply conditioning your players with the mile run (or further) is NOT the way to go.
Feel free to forward this on to any b-ball coaches that you know. And don’t forget to check out Coach Poliquin’s article for more information on the topic.
Happy training!
The Right Exercises For Your Basketball Strength Training
April 6, 2011 by danny · Leave a Comment
I had a new article published at iHoops today. Even though iHoops.com is a basketball website, the advice applies to any lifter out there. Check it out…
In the field of strength and conditioning, everyone wants to know what the best exercise is for X, Y, and Z.
I’ve had people ask me, “what is the best exercise to improve power?” I’ve had people ask me, “what is the best exercise for strong shoulders?” I’ve had people ask me, “what exercise is better, back squats or bulgarian split squats?” And the list goes on and on.
My answer is always the same–it depends. As much as I’d like to give these enthusiastic and inquisitive individuals a one-size-fits-all answer, I just can’t do it. There are too many factors to consider before I can even come close to giving them my opinion. For example, I’d need to know…
March Madness!
March 26, 2011 by danny · Leave a Comment
I recently wrote up a “March Madness” article for FitStudio. It’s all about the craziness that is March Madness and what it has meant to me over the years. Check it out HERE.
Enjoy this weekend’s games!
