Charlie Cates

Client Testimonial – Laurie Dring

Check out this awesome testimonial from Charlie and Julie’s client, Laurie!  Laurie has been coming to Muscle Activation Schaumburg since the beginning of 2017 and has been participating in both Muscle Activation Techniques™ (MAT™) and customized personal training sessions.  While her initial concern was improving the function and strength of her shoulder, she has now progressed to maintaining her strength and mobility through infrequent but consistent muscle tune ups.  Laurie is now a consistent exerciser on her own and continues to utilize Muscle Activation Techniques™ to make sure her body is firing on all cylinders.  This ensures that she is able to get the most out of her workouts and progressively improve her health and physical function.

(more…)

By Team MAS, ago

What should you know before you start working out?

When it comes to working out, there are a lot of misconceptions about how to get started and what to do.  As a personal trainer in Schaumburg, many of my daily conversations revolve around clearing up a lot of this misinformation with clients and on various online forums.  If you are going to start working out on a regular basis, there are three things you need to keep in mind before you begin exercising.  Each of these points goes against what is commonly thought to be the more important aspects of exercising, but, like I said, dispelling exercise and fitness myths is part of my job.

Three things to keep in mind for when you start working out:

1.Exercise should be used to build your body, not break it down. (more…)

By Charlie Cates, ago

How often should you have a day off from working out?

You know you should be exercising, but how often should you take a day off from your workouts?  As a personal trainer in Schaumburg, this question comes up often with my clients.

As with most things health and fitness related, the only truthful answer is, “it depends”.  How often you take a day off from working out in part depends on:

  • What you are doing while you are at the gym
  • What your body is currently accustomed to
  • What your body is physically able to tolerate
  • How well you are recovering from your workouts (i.e. do you feel sore and lethargic or energized and strong in the hours and days following your workout?)
  • What your goals are (health vs. performance vs. changing body composition)
  • What the timeline is for your goals

(more…)

By Charlie Cates, ago

Why Your Workouts Aren’t Working

When you think of the reasons why you should exercise or do your workouts, what do you think of?  Improving your health?  Increasing your fitness abilities, such as your strength, endurance, or flexibility?  Changing your body composition?  Changing how your body looks and feels?  Increasing your energy levels?  As a personal trainer in Schaumburg, I can tell you that all of these are wonderful reasons to exercise.

Now, when you actually go and exercise, what do you think of?  While you are doing your workouts — the running, the lifting weights, the group fitness class, the biking, the whole exercise thing — what are you thinking of?  Are you thinking about how your body is feeling?  Are you thinking about what your body is doing?

(more…)

By Charlie Cates, ago

Meditation – 5 lessons I learned from doing it every day for a year

I always thought meditation was some woo woo kind of thing where you would sit in silence and pretend like you were floating while discovering the answers to your deepest questions.  I thought there was a perfect meditation position that you needed to sit in in order to attain the benefits of meditation.  And, most of all, I thought that meditation, while an intriguing concept, just wasn’t for me.  The “perfect meditation position” was extremely uncomfortable, my mind would be racing constantly, and I would often wonder how much time I had left before the alarm that I set for myself went off.

Then, back in 2015, I started using the popular app Headspace to guide me through meditation exercises.  I wanted to see if a regular meditation practice could help me manage my stress a bit better.  I was also starting to hear of the many health and brain benefits of meditating, and wanted to experience those for myself.

When I first got the app, I really enjoyed using it.  I completed the first 10 days in a row, then the first 30.  Somewhere between days 30 and 60, however, I fell off the wagon and stopped using the app altogether.  I would open it up every now and then for a 10-minute meditation session, but those times were few and far between.

But then, last April, I decided that I wanted to start meditating using the app again.  I wanted to see if I could meditate every day for an entire year and set the goal to do so.  The app has a nice feature where it measures your current meditation streak, so that would be easy for me to track.  It also has markers along the way at days 3, 10, 15, 30, 90, 180, and then finally 365.

So I started the “woo woo” activity, sitting in a more comfortable position than what I had originally believed was appropriate, and just dealt with the fact that my mind was wandering a lot during my practice.  And I did that everyday for an entire year.

(more…)

By Charlie Cates, ago

5 Ways To Tell If Your Personal Training Is Truly Personal

How personal is your personal training?  It can seem like a ridiculous question, but let’s explore.

A quick search on Dictionary.com reveals that there are multiple definitions of “personal”:

  1. of, relating to, or coming as from a particular person; individual; private
  2. relating to, directed to, or intended for a particular person
  3. intended for use by one person

The definitions continue, but, for our purposes, these will do.

When it comes to personal training, there seems to often be a disconnect between the type of “personal” that is marketed, the type that is delivered, and the type that could be experienced but is often overlooked.

(more…)

By Charlie Cates, ago

What makes a Muscle Activation Techniques™ practitioner unique?

When people think of muscles, they usually don’t immediately think of a Muscle Activation Techniques™ (MAT™) practitioner, but they should.  Similar to how somebody might think of a dentist after hearing “teeth”, or a chiropractor after hearing “back” or “spine”, Muscle Activation Techniques™ may one day have that same relationship when somebody hears “muscle”.  For the time being, though, that typically isn’t the case, and here’s why — many people aren’t sure of 1) what MAT™ is, and 2) what makes MAT™ unique.  In that case, let’s discuss both of these. 

(more…)

By Charlie Cates, ago

Considering Adding MAT™ To Your Professional Toolbox? Read This.

As a personal trainer or fitness professional, adding the Muscle Activation Techniques™ (MAT™) skillset to your professional toolbox can be one of the best decisions you make.  Not only can it serve as a differentiator from your competitors, but it can allow you to help your clients in ways you did not think were possible, both as a result of the MAT™ process as well as because of the information the MAT™ process provides you.

When I first started personal training, I was completely unsure how to assess my clients.  Coming from a sports performance background, assessments had always involved some kind of one-rep-max bench press and squat.  But what kind of information would that really provide me about my clients?

(more…)

By Charlie Cates, ago

Doing The “Right Things” When You Exercise

“I don’t know how my body got like this.  My entire life I’ve done the right things.  I have eaten a healthy diet. I have exercised regularly.  I have been doing the right things for as long as I can remember.”

As a personal trainer and MAT™ specialist in Schaumburg, this kind of statement is one that I hear every now and then.  People are in disbelief that, despite their best efforts, their bodies are not feeling and functioning as they would expect.  Their joints are achy, their muscles are stiff, and their once-youthful energy seems to be just a memory.  And the most frustrating part for them is that they have always tried to do what others told them would be good for them.  They always tried to do the right things for their body.

However, the unfortunate truth is that the information they were given and the activities they were doing have likely contributed significantly to what they are now experiencing.

(more…)

By Charlie Cates, ago