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Nathanael Littauer, CSCS
- May 22, 2018
- 3 min
Lifestyle.
I had a conversation with a good friend of mine whose been struggling to reach his health and fitness goals. He’s tried various diets and workout routines, but they don’t tend to last long or the results don’t tend to be maintainable. When we looked at the changes he made, I realized that they were sudden drastic measures. While these diets and routines yield short term results, they often have strict requirements or grueling workouts. The results are great while they last, b
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Nathanael Littauer, CSCS
- Apr 26, 2018
- 3 min
Due Process
I once had someone tell me that I would Snatch 150kg (330lbs) and Clean and Jerk 185kg (405lbs) in my lifetime. I believed him, until the training program he put me on crushed me. It was tons of reps and sets, and the amount of fatigue set in and I mistook it for injury. After, I jumped to a program with heavier weights and far fewer reps. I felt good for a while, but the weights were too heavy, I developed imbalances and eventually got hurt. It took me several months to reco
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Nathanael Littauer, CSCS
- Feb 7, 2018
- 2 min
Building Strength On A Time Crunch
Life is busy. In today's society, the most valuable thing anyone possesses is their time. Taking the time to do something for others, or even yourself, often means some kind of sacrifice. And while many people also spend hours a day looking at social media and scrolling through the internet (exactly like you are now), those same people will cite lack of time as a reason for not making progress or not exercising at all. I understand it. I'm busy myself, and creating the time t
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Nathanael Littauer, CSCS
- Oct 25, 2017
- 3 min
Body Basics: Adaptation- Part 1
Stimulate, Adapt, Recover. These are the basic 3 processes of exercise and fitness that we've been focusing on. When the topic was introduced, it was to help people gain a very simple understanding of their bodies and what is happening when they hit the gym (or what is not happening). If you haven't read the Body Basics post, or the second post on Stimulation, go back and read those first. As we progress, it's important to understand what happens when your body is introduced
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Nathanael Littauer, CSCS
- Oct 6, 2017
- 3 min
Body Basics: Exercise Processes
I come a across a lot of people in my job as a Personal Trainer who have either hit a plateau in their training or have never made any progress at all. I ask the normal questions: "What does your workout look like each time you come to the gym?" "Are your sets and reps the same every workout?" "Do you choose the same exercises every workout?" "What are your diet and sleep habits like?" The answers to these questions allow me to find the faults in your training that are holdin
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Nathanael Littauer, CSCS
- May 1, 2017
- 3 min
It's About Helping People
I've held off on writing about this for almost a month now. This concept, or conviction really, has been in the forefront of my mind for weeks now, and I can't shake it. This concept has to do with moral conviction in the field of personal training. Here's how this started: I did a free consultation with member of our gym after he had left a negative review of the consultation he'd already had with one of the other personal trainers at our facility. I was told by my superviso
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Nathanael Littauer, CSCS
- Mar 26, 2017
- 3 min
Learning From The Men's Elite Session
Recently, I had the opportunity to coach an athlete at a weightlifting meet in Charlotte, North Carolina. In the past year or so, the sport of Weightlifting (or Olympic Lifting as it's commonly referred to) has increased in popularity in the state, with some of the best lifters in the nation living north of the Charlotte area. After coaching my own athlete in the Women's "Elite" Session (the session with the highest entry totals), I stayed to watch the following Men's Elite
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Nathanael Littauer, CSCS
- Mar 14, 2017
- 3 min
Questions To Ask Your Personal Trainer
I want you to watch the video below from someone I used to train with (or at least at the same gym). Anna is a very talented athlete and coach, and is noted for her feats of muscle control, performing advanced calisthenics movements in what seems to be an effortless manner. She also happens to be very well spoken, and in the video below she touches on a training aspect that anyone paying for coaching/personal training should be aware of. Check it out! (copy and paste the link
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Nathanael Littauer, CSCS
- Feb 27, 2017
- 2 min
Why Strength? Part 2
It's almost March. This means that we have surpassed the sixth week of 2017. Roughly, according to some random statistics websites that I found, four to six weeks is right around the time people drop their New Year's resolutions. Unsurprisingly, most of those websites also conveyed that 25-30% of New Year's resolutions are centered around health/fitness or weight loss. Now I can't 100% validate those numbers, because the surveys were based on very small populations (~1,000 pe
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Nathanael Littauer, CSCS
- Feb 22, 2017
- 2 min
Why Strength? Part 1
"When in doubt, just get really, really strong. It tends to cure most problems in training...and life." - Jim Wendler Why strength? In my mind, it's not a hard question to answer. But for many, when it comes to strength training, they tend to shy away. New Year's Resolutions roll around, and people buy new running shoes and hit the road and jogging paths at the local park. I'm not going to bash running, though I personally no longer enjoy doing it myself, but instead I want t
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