Areté started as one coach's training log and grew into a place where people get matched with real attention — not just another app.
I named this after the Greek word for excellence — not the trophy kind, the kind earned through repetition, structure, and showing up on the days you don't feel like it. That's the whole philosophy here: a plan that respects your time, adjusts when life gets in the way, and is built to be sustained, not survived.
I was the overweight kid — elementary school through high school, and everything that comes with that. Fitness is what pulled me out, and I've never really put it down since. But I didn't set out to coach. I took a business management degree because it looked like the widest door into a job, graduated, interviewed everywhere, and nothing fit. So I went back to the first thing I'd ever cared about and started managing a gym.
Managing taught me mostly what I didn't want. The business ran on selling memberships to people who would never walk back through the door, and the floor was built for people who already looked the part — never for the kid I'd been. The one thing in that building that actually worked was the coaching. Trainers' clients showed up. They were consistent, they were in a good mood, and they were still there in March — long after the January sign-ups had quietly stopped coming. That wasn't the programming — it was the relationship. That was the fulfillment I'd been looking for: helping people directly, and watching the change happen the way it once happened to me.
Every program on this site, and every client I coach 1-on-1, follows the same idea: progress that compounds, not a sprint that burns out by week three.
Over 9 years I've coached 100+ clients — most stick around for months, many for years. I'd rather take on fewer people and actually know their training than chase a number. Outside of coaching, I compete as a USPA powerlifter — the same standards I hold for clients, I hold for myself.
A missed session doesn't break a plan. Consistency over months matters more than any single workout.
Your schedule, equipment, and experience shape the plan — not the other way around.
Weekly check-ins mean real adjustments, not a static PDF you're left to figure out alone.
"Nate didn't just write me a plan — he rewrote it twice when my knee acted up. That's the part you don't get from an app."— Jordan M., coaching client since 2024
Spots for 1-on-1 coaching are limited each month.