West Hartford personal trainer opens new Park Road gym

Mike Walker recently opened WeHa Fit in West Hartford, a one-on-one personal training gym.

WEST HARTFORD — Mike Walker knows all too well about how hard it can be to find the motivation to work out.

It was right before the COVID-19 pandemic that the West Hartford resident and his wife had their first child. It also timed up with Walker's shoulder surgery and his job as a Ben & Jerry's district manager.

"I gained the weight from not working because of the shoulder surgery and obviously the sympathy weight from the pregnancy," Walker said. "I was working for Ben & Jerry's and had all the ice cream I could eat."

He recalled all this from inside his new fitness studio, WeHa Fit, which he opened over a month ago at 261 Park Road in West Hartford. The new business, which occupies a space that had long been a barber shop, is ultimately the result of the motivation he discovered to start moving again after being laid off from his job.

WeHa Fit took over a space at 261 Park Road in West Hartford that had long been occupied by a barber shop.

Walker got his start in fitness at age 18. That year, he got his personal-training certification and immediately started teaching classes. His life has taken him in and out of jobs in the realm of fitness, including an unsuccessful business venture in 2003 called TNT Muscle & Fitness.

"We failed miserably," Walker said. "We had no idea what we were doing. We were trying to market to bodybuilders and hard-core lifters. There's not a lot of those guys out there. That didn't work out."

After working at LA Fitness in Newington as a personal trainer, Walker moved to New York City, where he got a job with Equinox Luxury Fitness Club, a boutique gym. He said that shaped his vision for what WeHa Fit would eventually become: a personal and private one-on-one training space.

"It's about building those personal relationships," Walker said. "I want to be a concierge trainer. I want to be available 24/7 to my clients. If they’re making a decision about dinner, they send me pictures of their food and say how about this? You can have that relationship. It's a friendship. If you’re seeing me three times a week, that's three hours a week you have to spend with me. You want to make sure you have something to talk about other than lift this or put that down."

Walker said his main demographic right now has been women between the ages of 35 and 55, though he works with lots of men too and has clients ranging in age from 13 up to 82 years old. At his gym, he said, he has the flexibility to cater to whatever his client needs.

And though everyone who walks through his door is different, there is a common thread that Walker shares too. As a trainer, he's all about functionality these days.

"My goal is functional movement and really being able to get through life without pain," Walker said. "They aren't interested in being bodybuilders. They just want to feel better and move their body more efficiently and not feel like crap. They don't want to die."

WeHa Fit offers its clients a variety of exercise options, owner Mike Walker said.

Coming out of the pandemic, Walker said he's also noticed mental health going hand-in-hand with physical fitness. It's something he works on with his clients as well.

"There's the mental health aspect of things, too," he said. "A lot of us got really, really depressed because we were stuck. We were stuck at home. Getting clients to kind of come over their depression and work on their mental health, that has been huge."

Walker is focused on keeping his client list at a level he can handle. He has two children and works six days a week, including a job as a waiter at the restaurant Treva in town. That way, he said, he can be available to clients whenever they need him and keep things personal. That said, Walker is still taking on new clients and is offering his six-week program at half price until the end of January.

"It's the best part of the job," Walker said about his relationship with his clients. "You see that light turn on in somebody's eyes because something as simple as picking something up off the ground isn't painful anymore. Or hitting a weight goal of deadlifting where you never thought you’d be strong enough. You don't need a ton of clients in this business. There are only so many hours in the day."