Mid-Week Mugging is a series of features by BayToday. Each Wednesday, we will run a profile on a local business or organization that will be "mugged" with BayToday coffee cups. The subjects will then "mug" for our camera and we will tell a little bit about their story.
There’s no TV’s, no sauna, no whirlpool.
In fact, the temperature is a cool 15 degrees in the basement gym at Mojo Fitness off Regina Street in North Bay.
But that’s just the way Joe and Monique Cormier like it.
The award-winning bodybuilders stepped away from corporate fitness training last spring and decided to venture out on their own opening a grassroots two-story gymnasium on their own called, “Mojo Fitness,” which opened last June.
Joe Cormier, is 54-year-old, and Monique is 39, and the two will be competing at the mixed pairs national bodybuilding championships in July.
While discount gyms are popping up all over the city, the Cormier’s believe their personal touch makes them a step above the rest.
One of their most popular programs is their circuit training boot camp.
“These people are becoming friends and everybody does it at their own pace,” said Joe about the camps they run daily.
“We have different stations set up and if you don’t want to pull as much weight as the other person did at that station, you just put less weight. you can take a break in between and you gradually get there.
“It makes everybody comfortable and it does not matter what fitness level you are.”
While they are both dedicated personal trainers, there was a time when they were not the ripped athletes they are today.
“We are experienced in the fact that we have done it, we went from being overweight, unhealthy to sick to athletes,” said Monique.
“We took it to a new level of our own physical fitness and we are proof that anything is possible,” added Joe.
See related: Power Couple Joe and Monique Cormier do it again - placing top 5
Monique Cormier was a key part of some transformation success stories of people young and old when she was a corporate personal trainer.
Now she and her husband say they take pride in doing the same thing watching the transformations occur at their own gym. on their own time.
See related: Life changing results at Boot Camp
“We don’t push people, we encourage them,” said Joe.
“This is where we build champions, this is where you come in, we know everyone here by their first name, we don’t have to look at the computer once the attendant has scanned the membership card. I know their first name, I know their goals and I know how much weight they have lost or how they are doing.”
Monique believes actions speak louder than words when it comes to running a gym.
"No other facility here, walks the talk, and that is what is important because we can actually relate," she said.
"If you have employees that have no interest in their clientele, just a pay cheque, not that they don’t care but they cannot add to their experience with knowledge and that experience."
While the new gym is keeping the couple busy, the start of this new adventure did have its challenges. It was not an easy decision to branch off and create a new gym with all the other competition and less expensive options out there.
They knew there was a risk.
“It was a challenge and we started looking around and it can be expensive to rent a building,” admitted Joe.
“You are going to build a gym and you are hoping people are going to come in, but the thing is we knew a lot of people but are they going to come in or not? We did not know, because we are not a discount gym, it costs more.”
