When Charlie Cates was in middle school, he purchased a pair of “strength shoes” with the hopes of getting an extra boost in his jump so he could dunk. Little did he know his purchase would set in motion a series of life events that has seen him open his own personal training business and working with the Buffalo Bills.

“From the time I was a little kid, I always wanted to be able to dunk,” said Cates, a 2006 Monroe High School graduate. “I would practice trick dunks on the Fisher Price hoop in the basement and on our driveway hoop with the rim lowered.”

When he bought the “strength shoes,” he thought he would simply be able to jump higher. “They turned out to be workout equipment that came with plyometrics programs,” Charlie said.

He gave the programs a shot and fell in love with it. 

“I could feel my body getting stronger. My brother Tony would join in and I really enjoyed working with him and teaching him how to do the workouts,” Charlie said. The Cates boys, sons of Dr. Bob and Linda Cates, were in eighth and sixth grade in early 2002. They also have a sister, Miranda.

Charlie went to a basketball camp in Milwaukee hosted by then-Marquette coach Tom Crean. “(He) gave the campers a guide of what you could expect your results to be as a basketball player based on the number of hours you spent practicing each year. I figured out how many hours per day I would have to practice and workout to get to ‘superstar status’ and I started recording my workout and practice time in a notebook.”

Once in high school, Cates starred on the basketball court, helping the Cheesemakers to the 2005 state tournament and a Badger South title. He placed second at the state track meet as a senior in 2006. 

“Here’s the thing — there were a number of cool moments throughout my career, but the thing I enjoyed the most was the daily grind. I loved running hills with my dad, brother, and his friends. I loved getting to school at before 6 a.m. to lift or get up shots. I loved the early morning practices, the after-school workouts on the driveway, the summers sweating up a storm at the YMCA,” Cates said. “My fondest memory is all of that, the culmination of working day after day towards something that is bigger than you and for something that is bigger than you. Yes, there were cool game moments, but those moments come and pass. What I really loved was the process — the pursuit.”

He went on to attend Williams College in Massachusetts, playing basketball for four years. During his time in college, the Ephs were the 2007 NESCAC Tournament Champions and made the NCAA Division III national tournament. As a senior in 2010, Cates and the Ephs made it to the national championship game after posting a 30-2 record, but lost to UW-Stevens Point in the title bout.

“I would love to get moments in the National Championship game back,” Cates said while also recognizing that playing a game of “what ifs” is a bit unnecessary. “I believe in many ways learning the lessons that have come from making the decisions I have are more valuable than having had made the other decisions. Yes, I would have liked different outcomes at times, but I don’t know how those outcomes would have affected everything thereafter, and I am loving my life right now, so I cannot say deep down that I wish I would have done things differently.”

It was at Williams College that Cates’ love for training grew. During his freshman year, he came up with the idea of opening his own sports performance gym. “I figured if I could blend the economics education I was getting in school with the training education I was getting outside of it, I could create something special.”

In 2008, he interned for Athletic Republic, then located in Middleton, and learned the importance of the nervous system function for sports and athletic ability. The following year he interned at Fitness Quest 10 in San Diego. “I learned a lot about the process of mastery and what it takes to be great from working with Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees and LaDainian Tomlinson.” He also learned the importance of nutrition and recovery, plus the business side of fitness.

He had multiple job offers waiting for him after graduating in 2010. He had a chance to go back to San Diego, and was pondering a position as a personal trainer for a high school where a former college coach of his was a varsity basketball coach. 

Three days after graduation, he received a phone call from a blocked number, but decided to answer it. It was the secretary for Jonathan Kraft, the president of the New England Patriots and son of owner Robert Kraft., who wanted Cates to go to Boston to interview to be a part of the team’s strength and conditioning staff.

“I was actually on my way to the Boston Logan airport as I was on the phone with her and I thought, ‘Well I can’t do that because I would either have to cancel my flight home today and find a hotel or get home then immediately fly back,’ and that just seems like a huge hassle,” Cates said.

He had just accepted a position as a personal trainer at a YMCA in Greenwich, Connecticut, right outside of New York City. It wasn’t the only offer that came after starting at the YMCA, as he turned down an offer to work with Michael Jordan’s trainer, Tim Grover, in Chicago.

Fate had other ideas for Cates, though.

“Three weeks after I got home, I found out the YMCA in Greenwich was going bankrupt and wouldn’t have a job for me,” he said. “One of my teammates in college was going to Northwestern Law School at the time and told me to come check out Chicago because there were a lot of gyms down there. I had four interviews set up within a week. I decided to accept an offer from a gym called Fitness Formula Clubs in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago. I moved to Chicago on August 1, 2010 and began working at FFC a couple weeks after that.”

It was there that he learned about Muscle Activation Techniques (MAT), which was something Cates had never heard before.

“I just saw them taking their clients to the back of the gym and doing what looked to me like this weird pseudo-stretching thing,” he said.

Cates dove into his studies for personal training, as well as watching the Chicago Bulls. He said his first year in the Windy City was rough.

“I would be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that I contemplated quitting,” he said.

In 2012, he left Fitness Formula Clubs and took an introductory class called Resistance Training Specialist, for personal trainers. He signed up for the mastery-level courses in Oklahoma City that summer.

“I thought, ‘If I’m going to go all the way out to OKC, I should probably take the time to do the introductory courses before I go.” The closest classes were in Columbus, Ohio. It was there that he met his wife, Julie.

After going through multiple-course works and earning certifications, he spent nine months getting three hours of sleep each night.

“I would wake up at 3 a.m., study and write, head to the gym, train clients, study between clients, workout, study, train, do that into the evening, then get home and study and write blogs until midnight.”

Cates disliked living in downtown Chicago. He was just a block-and-a-half from Wrigley Field and working in the West Loop.

“It was nuts. I wanted something quieter while still having access to the city,” he said.

He picked out Schaumburg because of its easy access to O’Hare airport and downtown so “clients could easily fly in and out” and it was an easy drive home to Monroe. Also, there was no one in the area doing MAT.

“I began the mastery level MAT courses in addition to continuing the mastery level RTS courses. This had me flying to either Denver or Oklahoma City nearly every month. I started assisting the instruction of MAT classes outside of Minneapolis, so once a month I would head up there, too,” he said.

Julie moved from Florida to Schaumburg to join Charlie in June 2013. The next month, he passed the MAT mastery exam, becoming the then-youngest MAT mastery practitioner in the world. Julie passed the same exam a-year-and-a-half later, breaking Cates’ record, while keeping it in house. Charlie had been accepted to grad school at Northeastern Illinois University that summer, eventually graduating with a Masters of Exercise Science in 2016.

Over the next half-decade, Cates and his wife built up their own business, Muscle Activation Schaumburg. In September 2017, they won the Daily Herald’s Entrepreneurial Excellence Award for young entrepreneurs, a started their own podcast a few months later. In October 2019, the Schaumburg Business Association picked Muscle Activation Schaumburg as its Business of the Year.

In 2019, the Buffalo Bills contacted Cates to work with them on a week-to-week basis during training camp because of a visa issue with their normal trainer out of Toronto. Cates liked the team, and the team liked Cates. Once a week he would fly out to be with the team for a day and then fly back.

Of all the trips over the 20-plus weeks, Cates remembers a snowstorm that canceled flights from Chicago to Buffalo, so instead he caught a last minute plane to Cleveland, but the flight came in too late to rent a car, so he paid an Uber driver to drive him 4.5 hours to Buffalo in the snow.

“I got to my hotel at 5:30 AM, slept until 6:15, woke up, and caught an Uber at 7 to the practice facility. I worked all day with guys and flew home,” Cates said. On his drive home from the airport, his car had a flat tire. “It was 9 at night, 9 degrees outside, and my driver side front tire is completely flat. So, I am on the side of the road trying to change this tire in horrific lighting and single digit temps and I have semi trucks whizzing by my head. That was not my most fun trip to Buffalo, but it is the one I remember most distinctly.”

In the end, the Bills went on to win 10 games during the regular season — the most for the franchise in 20 years. 

“Sports can be one of the best teachers and one of the best tools you will ever have. It can teach you how to work towards something bigger than yourself. It can teach you the importance of delayed gratification. It can teach you how to endure mental and physical adversity,” Cates said.

Charlie and Julie have a 14-month old daughter, Avalon. Charlie said being a parent has brought him even more appreciation to his mother, Linda.

“My mother was and continues to be such a fantastic role model for how to treat others. Her kindness and generosity are unmatched, and growing up there were many unspoken lessons that she taught me through her actions that I now get to see play out as I have a child of my own,” he said.

The work life for Charlie and Julie hasn’t slowed much, other than the COVID-19 pandemic is keeping them from meeting face-to-face with their clients, they have been running daily workouts for free live on their Facebook page. 

Charlie can’t wait to “get back to the craziness that has been my career.

“Looking at my life so far, every moment of discomfort has led to growth in one way or another. Instead of something to be avoided, discomfort can be something to be pursued, allowing us to continue to grow, to continue to callous our mind and body, to build our tolerance for ‘the suck’, and increase our anti-fragility. Ultimately, this gives us the capability of doing more and being more than we could have imagined.”