Personal Trainers in North Bay
— Meet the Team at The Next Step

Amanda Hampel walked into The Next Step Fitness Centre on November 1, 2010, as a personal trainer. She didn’t walk in with a business plan or a five-year strategy. She walked in because she had a passion for fitness and decided to follow it.

Five years later, she became the manager — handling everything from accounting to community events to promoting the gym across North Bay. Another five years after that, in March 2020, the opportunity to buy the business came up. She took it. Within days, Ontario locked down. Gyms closed for over 14 months.

She could have walked away. Instead, she fought through it. Members stayed. Clients sent encouraging messages. The community that had supported The Next Step since 2001 rallied behind her. When the doors reopened, the gym was still standing.

Now, with the move to 1370 Regina St in North Bay’s west end — a decision she made in July 2025 after ten years of dreaming about it — Amanda is building the gym she always envisioned. Not a franchise. Not a box with machines. A place where people actually get healthier.

Her training philosophy comes down to one idea: balance. Fitness shouldn’t be about being thin or having a desirable figure. It should be about having a healthy heart, strong muscles and bones, flexible joints, and powerful lungs. It’s about controlling blood pressure, lowering cholesterol, relieving arthritis pain, and reducing stress. And it’s about not depriving yourself of the foods you love or that second glass of wine. Enjoy them in moderation. Learn to balance fitness with fun.

“The most rewarding part of being a trainer isn’t what I thought it would be. It’s the connections you make with your clients. They become friends — some even feel like family. What better way to make a living than helping a friend live a healthy life?”

Amanda holds two diplomas from Canadore College in North Bay: Sports Conditioning and Fitness & Health Promotion. She is certified through CanFitPro, Canada’s largest fitness certification organization, and has been in the industry for over 15 years.

Mike Claeys was born in Stratford, Ontario, and moved to North Bay in 2014. He’s been involved with fitness and sports for most of his life — not just as a participant, but as someone who studies how bodies move, adapt, and get stronger under the right kind of stress.

What sets Mike apart is the range of people he’s trained. His experience spans from young athletes trying to build speed and power for their sport all the way to clients over 70 focused on functional training and maintaining their independence. That’s not a common range. Most trainers specialize in one end of the spectrum. Mike works across the entire thing.

He holds a diploma in Strength and Sport Conditioning and is a fully certified NCCP Club Coach through the Coaching Association of Canada — a program that has trained over two million coaches since 1974. His coaching approach reflects that training: structured, systematic, and grounded in fundamentals.

In an industry full of fads and trends, Mike keeps things simple. He focuses on three pillars: building strength, improving mobility and flexibility, and increasing overall conditioning. No gimmicks. No shortcuts. Just consistent, proven programming that works whether you’re 17 or 72.

“With so many fads and trends in fitness, I like to keep things simple. Build strength. Improve mobility. Increase conditioning. That’s it. That’s what works.”

Ian Haynes has been training clients at The Next Step Fitness Centre in North Bay since 2023. His background is in powerlifting — not the Instagram version, but the real thing. Squats, deadlifts, bench press, and the discipline it takes to get stronger week after week without cutting corners on form or safety.

That strength and conditioning background shapes everything about how Ian trains. Whether a client wants to build muscle, lose weight, recover from an injury, or just feel more confident under a barbell, Ian’s approach is the same: get the technique right first, then add weight. No ego lifting. No rushing through sets to check a box.

He’s certified by the National Federation of Professional Trainers (NFPT), an NCCA-accredited organization that has been certifying trainers since 1988. He’s also currently completing a professional bodybuilding trainer’s course — adding to his toolkit so he can help clients who have physique-specific goals in addition to performance ones.

Outside the gym, Ian is guided by his faith as a Christian, and he brings that same sense of purpose and care to his training relationships. He’s an outdoors person, a reader, and a team sports fan — soccer, football, baseball, basketball, and hockey all make the list. That love of team sport translates to how he coaches: he’s in it with you, not just standing there watching.

“I come from the world of strength and conditioning. My job is to help you reach your goals in a safe and effective way. That starts with getting the basics right.”

Fitness has been part of his life for more than 20 years. He’s a long-distance runner, a certified personal trainer (CSEP-CPT), and has spent over a decade working hands-on in gym environments. Movement isn’t just something he teaches — it’s something he lives every day.

His journey into fitness didn’t start with chasing aesthetics or quick results. It began with curiosity: how the body adapts, how strength and endurance are built over time, and how training can improve not just performance, but confidence, health, and overall quality of life. Over the years, that curiosity turned into a career focused on helping people move better, feel stronger, and build sustainable habits that actually last.

He holds a diploma in Fitness and Health Promotion and has worked with a wide range of clients — from complete beginners stepping into the gym for the first time, to experienced individuals looking to improve performance, manage pain, or rebuild trust in their bodies. He also coaches online, allowing him to support clients beyond the gym and adapt training to real-life schedules and environments.

What drives his work is simple: training done properly changes lives. Not through extremes or shortcuts, but through consistency, education, and respect for the individual. He’s seen how poor programming and “all-or-nothing” fitness culture can lead to burnout and injury. His approach is the opposite — building people up with smarter movement, stronger joints, and a mindset focused on long-term progress, not quick fixes.

His training philosophy centers on longevity first, performance second, aesthetics last. He believes good movement quality matters more than chasing numbers, and that strength, stability, and mobility are non-negotiable. Progress should be challenging, but never reckless. Consistency always beats intensity.

Whether a client’s goal is fat loss, strength, endurance, injury resilience, or simply feeling better day-to-day, his coaching is always individualized, grounded in real physiology, and adapted to the person in front of him — not fitness trends.

When someone works with him, they can expect thoughtful programming, clear coaching, honest guidance, and a long-term approach built around their life, not against it. Fitness should enhance life — not consume it.

Ethan Monahan was born and raised in North Bay, Ontario. He left to study Kinesiology at Western University in London, Ontario — one of the top 50 Kinesiology programs in the world and the broadest range of activity courses in any Kinesiology program in Canada. Now he’s back home, bringing a university-level understanding of how bodies move, recover, and perform to the members at The Next Step Fitness Centre.

At Western, Ethan didn’t just study. He worked. He was embedded with multiple varsity teams — primarily Women’s Basketball, Softball, and Ultimate Frisbee, with additional work alongside Men’s Basketball, Women’s Hockey, and the Swimming team. For those teams, he built structured workout programs for both in-season and off-season use, led group workouts, ran prehab and conditioning sessions, and conducted performance testing.

That’s a breadth of experience you don’t usually find in a trainer at a community gym. Ethan has worked with coaches, athletes, and individuals with different physical abilities, training backgrounds, and experience levels. He’s seen what works across a wide range of bodies and goals, and he’s learned to adapt — something that matters when you’re training a retired teacher on Monday and a competitive hockey player on Tuesday.

His Kinesiology degree covers exercise physiology, biomechanics, anatomy, sports injuries, exercise psychology, and sport management. That’s a four-year foundation in the science of human movement — not a weekend certification.

“My goal is to help you reach yours — whether you’re aiming to build strength, enhance performance, or just move and feel better. That’s what it comes down to.”