Hidden Gems: Meet Kris Herbert of The Gym Venice

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kris Herbert.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I didn’t grow up dreaming of owning a gym. I grew up chasing strength, because strength felt like the only thing that ever kept me safe.
My introduction to lifting happened in my parents’ basement, on a wobbly metal bench under a flickering bulb. I was eleven years old, lifting alongside my older brother, whose identity revolved around strength. When I outperformed him for the first time and earned his respect, something clicked. Strength showed me that effort could change how you’re seen and how you see yourself.
For the next two decades, I pursued it relentlessly. I trained, competed, and eventually stood next to some of the strongest lifters in the world, achieving goals my younger self never imagined. From the outside, it looked like discipline and success. From the inside, strength became armor. Armor worn too long can quietly become identity.
There were years when my life looked impressive but felt hollow. I made choices rooted in ego, impulse, and avoidance. At one point, I stepped away from my life entirely, trying to outrun patterns I hadn’t yet learned how to confront. What ultimately changed everything wasn’t another achievement. It was stillness. I learned that strength without awareness is just force, and power without purpose eventually collapses inward.
That realization reshaped my relationship with training and became the foundation of what I do today. The gym I built isn’t about extremes or performance at all costs. It’s about helping people feel capable, durable, and confident in their bodies again, especially those who’ve been told their best years are behind them. I’m passionate about teaching strength as a tool for resilience, not escape, because I understand firsthand what happens when you try to outrun yourself instead.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The road has been anything but smooth.
For a long time, the only place in my life where effort reliably translated into results was in my body. In training, the outcome was honest. You put the work in, or you didn’t. Strength gave me something I couldn’t find anywhere else: a clear relationship between effort and worth.
Outside of that, everything felt unstable. In my personal life, many of my choices were shaped by perception. I learned early how to act, how to perform, how to become what I thought others wanted to see. Professionally, my sense of value was often dictated by what someone else decided I was worth, which slowly eroded any real self-worth I had.
Strength became the one place where no one else could define me. The results I earned under the bar built a belief that I was worth more than the limits being placed on me. I couldn’t have achieved what I achieved if there wasn’t something real inside me. That belief grew quietly at first, then fiercely. It fueled everything I did.
When I felt unseen or boxed in, I moved on. I repeated that pattern until there was nothing left for me where I was. Eventually, I made the decision to move to Los Angeles without a safety net, without certainty, and without a clear outcome. I only knew that staying meant shrinking, and I wasn’t willing to do that anymore.
That decision wasn’t an overnight success. The first few years were spent searching for clarity while fighting the fear of being perceived as a failure. I had to sit with uncertainty, redefine success, and learn how to build a life that wasn’t based on proving myself to others.
Those struggles shaped everything I do now. They taught me that real resilience isn’t just physical. It’s learning how to trust yourself, how to stand still long enough to understand what you actually want, and how to keep moving forward even when the outcome isn’t guaranteed.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about The Gym Venice?
The Gym Venice is a strength-focused gym built for adults over 40 who want to feel capable in their bodies again, not intimidated by them.
We specialize in intelligent, personalized strength training for people who care about longevity, resilience, and quality of life. Many of our clients are at a stage of life where moving better, feeling stronger, and trusting their bodies again matters more than chasing extremes or risking injury.
What sets us apart is how we approach strength. We don’t treat it as punishment, ego, or spectacle. We treat it as a skill. Every program is individualized, progressions are intentional, and education is built into the process. One thing we’re especially known for is The Gym 101, a structured introduction to strength training designed to remove fear, build confidence, and help people understand what their bodies are capable of before intensity ever becomes part of the conversation.
The brand was built around the idea that strength should serve you, not consume you. That philosophy shows up in everything we do, from how sessions are coached to how progress is measured. We prioritize consistency over intensity, longevity over burnout, and awareness over performance for performance’s sake.
What I’m most proud of is the environment we’ve created. The Gym Venice isn’t a place where people feel judged or compared. It’s a place where people feel seen, supported, and capable. Many of our clients walk in believing their best years are behind them, and leave realizing they’re stronger than they thought, both physically and mentally.
Ultimately, I want readers to know that our work goes beyond fitness. We help people rebuild trust in themselves. We show them that strength doesn’t have to be loud or aggressive to be powerful. When done correctly, it becomes a foundation for confidence, resilience, and a better relationship with your own body.

What does success mean to you?
For me, success isn’t a number, a title, or an external marker. It’s alignment.

Success is living in a way that reflects who I actually am, not who I felt pressured to be. It’s building a life and a business that feel honest and sustainable, rather than impressive from the outside and empty on the inside.

That said, I also believe financial recognition matters. After a lifetime of hard work, discipline, and commitment, I believe it’s fair to be compensated in a way that reflects the value you’ve created. Not as a measure of self-worth, but as acknowledgment that your effort, skill, and persistence matter.

Professionally, success means creating an environment where people feel safe enough to try, patient enough to progress, and confident enough to trust themselves again. Personally, it means waking up without the need to prove anything and going to sleep knowing I showed up with intention.

If there’s a common thread, it’s this: success is the ability to move forward without betraying yourself. When your values, your work, and your daily actions are in sync, both fulfillment and financial stability become a natural byproduct, not the goal itself.

Pricing:

• The Gym 101- $99
• 1-on-1 Training- $175
• 2-on-1 Training- $250

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.TheGymVenice.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegymvenice/
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/thegymvenice/

Image Credits
Libby Kaminski