Episode 307 of the Tom Rowland Podcast is my conversation with Chris "Tatted Strength" Luera, whose life is one of the most extreme stories of change I have ever heard. Chris went down a dark road as a kid — gangs, drugs, and three adult prison terms between roughly ages 12 and 24 — before completely turning his life around and becoming a three-time world champion in calisthenics at the Battle of the Bars. If you have seen the Instagram clips of guys doing muscle-ups and three-sixties over the bars, that is Chris. This is the story of how he got there.
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Chris Luera, known as Tatted Strength, is a three-time world champion in calisthenics who competed at the Battle of the Bars. He is also the author of a book about his life. Before fitness, Chris spent years in and out of jail and prison — serving three adult prison terms — amid gangs and drugs, before turning his life around. He is now known for his elite bar skills, like muscle-ups and three-sixties, and for sharing a powerful story of personal change.
Chris told me he started down a destructive path young — fighting, stealing alcohol, smoking weed with older kids, then tagging and getting pulled into street gangs and prison gangs. From about age 12 to 24 he cycled in and out of jail and prison, ultimately serving three adult prison terms tied to gang life, drugs, and meth.
The constant through his story is his biological mother, who adopted him — she took him in and never stopped telling him he could change, even when the rest of the family said to let him go. The turning point came during his last prison term, after a riot that sent him to solitary following a call with his sister. He decided that when he got out, he would give his mother the gift of finally changing for good.
The Battle of the Bars is a calisthenics championship where athletes compete in bar-based street-workout disciplines — the muscle-ups, three-sixties, and gravity-defying moves you see on social media. Chris Luera won it three times, earning the title of three-time world champion in the sport.
Yes. Chris wrote a book about his life, and we talk about it in the episode. One section that stuck with me describes how he received assignments from people higher up in the gang world — a structure he compares, in a dark way, to climbing a corporate ladder, except it was leading him down rather than up.
After getting out of prison and taking humbling first steps back into normal life — filling out job applications, working as a bar back, going to bartender school — Chris found calisthenics and the bars. The discipline gave him a new identity, a healthy outlet, and ultimately a world-championship career and a platform to inspire others who are trying to change.
I came across Chris the way a lot of people do — through his calisthenics on social media, the muscle-ups and three-sixties over the bars. But the deeper I looked, the more I realized the fitness was only part of the story. Here is a guy who spent years in gangs and did three adult prison terms, then changed everything about himself and became a three-time world champion. That kind of transformation is rare and worth understanding. I wanted to hear how someone climbs all the way out of that hole, and Chris's honesty about every step of it floored me.
Chris walks me through the slide with painful clarity — fighting as an outlet, stealing, weed with older kids, then tagging, street gangs, and prison gangs. He describes how fast the negativity took off and how, by his own account, his mom put him in jail more times than he put himself there, trying to save him. He even compares the gang hierarchy to a Fortune 500 ladder, except every rung led further down. Press play to hear how the pattern took hold.
The heart of this episode is the moment Chris decided to change. He describes his last prison term, a riot that landed him in the hole right after a phone call with his sister, and the realization that his family's belief in him might be falling on deaf ears. The constant was his adoptive mother — the woman who took him in and never stopped saying he could change. He decided to give her the gift of finally proving her right. Hear him tell it in the episode.
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The part of Chris's story that hit me hardest was not the dramatic stuff — it was the humbling, ordinary first steps. He talks about standing there as a grown man and former gang member, having been through prison riots, handing a job application to a teenager. He washed dishes and laundry in prison, then talked his way into being a bar back and went to bartender school to get a certificate. Those small, unglamorous moves are where the change actually happened. Listen to how he rebuilt from zero.
Somewhere along the line, Chris found calisthenics — the bars, the street workout, the discipline I follow myself — and it became the thing that channeled all of his intensity into something positive. It gave him an identity beyond his past, a community, and eventually a world-championship career. We talk about how the same drive that once fueled the dark road now fuels his training and his mission to show others that change is possible. Hear how he made the leap.
The day after this conversation, the person I could not stop thinking about was Chris's mother — a woman who adopted a kid from a hard situation at 56 and then spent more than a decade refusing to give up on him while everyone around her said to let him go. Her belief is the spine of this whole story.
The other thing I keep coming back to is that the dramatic version of change — the world championships, the viral clips — was built on the unglamorous version: the job application, the dishwashing, the daily choice to not go back. That is true of almost every transformation I have ever witnessed.
Listen to the whole thing. Whether you care about calisthenics or not, Chris's story about turning a life all the way around is one of the most powerful I have had on this show.
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Chris "Tatted Strength" Luera is a three-time world champion in calisthenics and an author whose life story is a remarkable account of transformation. Raised by a biological mother who adopted him, Chris fell into gangs and drugs as a young teenager and served three adult prison terms between roughly the ages of 12 and 24. After a turning point during his final prison term, he rebuilt his life from the ground up — taking entry-level jobs, going to bartender school, and discovering calisthenics. The bars channeled his intensity into elite athletic achievement, earning him three world titles at the Battle of the Bars and a platform he now uses to inspire others to believe that change is possible.
Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 307 with Chris Luera.
Tom Rowland: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the podcast today. Man, I've got an awesome guest for you today. Somebody a little different than our normal guest, but the message remains the same in a lot of ways. Chris Luera got started on the wrong road. He went down a dark road, ended up in prison, and then gets out, changes his life, and becomes a three-time world champion in the calisthenics championships, Battle of the Bars.
Tom Rowland: You've seen the Instagram of the guys doing muscle-ups and three-sixties and jumping over the bars and everything. Well, that's him, three-time world champion. But in order to do that, he had to really change his mindset. He had to change everything about himself, and this is a very extreme situation of someone being able to change and come out on the other side.
Tom Rowland: Basically, if you're struggling with something and you think you're having a hard time, man, you gotta check out Chris's story because it's really truly an amazing story of change and positivity. I really liked it. So here he comes. He's called Tatted Strength. His name is Chris Luera, and here he is.
Tom Rowland: Chris, man, thanks for doing this. I appreciate you coming on.
Chris Luera: Yeah. Thanks, Tom. Appreciate being on.
Tom Rowland: I read your book recently. It was amazing.
Chris Luera: You enjoyed it?
Tom Rowland: I did. I did enjoy it. I thought that it was an incredible story of really turning your life around. It's incredible. So I know that a lot of our listeners haven't heard your story. Do you mind kinda bringing us up to speed a little bit?
Chris Luera: No, not at all. First of all, I appreciate the support. I appreciate that you read the book, and it makes me feel good that you enjoyed it. So my name is Chris Luera. I am known as Tatted Strength. It's a mindset thing that has helped me get through a lot of stuff. I'll explain more as we go through the story. People know me through social media, Instagram, you know, things like that.
Chris Luera: My story goes, I was born to two highly addicted drug addicts. Both my biological parents were very much strung out and in their addictions much before I was ever thought to be a part of the picture. And after I came into the world, my biological mother overdosed and died when I was about two years old, in that range. And after she passed away, my father put me into a foster home, put me up for adoption. He understood that he was not in the place to try to take care of me.
Chris Luera: And I'm grateful for it because he ended up dying soon after I went into the foster home. My great aunt found out that I was in a foster home and found out about my parents dying and everything and adopted me. She became my mother. At the age of 56, she adopted a three-year-old from a drug family, and she already raised two kids of her own. She knew what she was getting into, and I'm grateful for her because she gave me a great amount of years of childhood, played sports, flag football, baseball, gave me love.
Tom Rowland: What years were those, for you?
Chris Luera: That was three years old to nine, ten years old.
Tom Rowland: Okay.
Chris Luera: It was just childhood greatness. You know, I struggled in school. There was a lot of things that I struggled with, just not knowing my biological parents. When I started school, first grade and all that is when it started getting bullied and picked on for having my grandmother pick me up all the time. They asked me where my mom was, and that's when the insecurities of my parents being gone and everything started to really take on. As a five-year-old, four-year-old, I asked questions where my mom is, and my adopted mother never kept anything from me. She told me the story, and she's my family. She's my great aunt.
Chris Luera: But it was really a struggle after school, when others' influence started to tell me that I was different more. When I couldn't read, when I struggled. I just put up a post on Instagram last night about the way I thought about soldiers and stuff. I used to take MREs to school for lunch, and that didn't help me not being the weird kid. But the pain and the different things of that started to seep in as a child.
Chris Luera: And as I got picked on, I started fighting as a kid. I was getting picked on a lot. I got picked on for being the kid on medication. So I started fighting, and then that gave me an outlet of violence that got kids to stop. It gave me the answer that it was the right thing to do, or it for sure got the job done of not making people pick on me or making me feel insecure about myself.
Chris Luera: And drugs seeped in very, very young. I think I started stealing alcohol from the garage and smoking some weed with some older kids around the corner. Around eleven, I started smoking weed and stuff. Ten, I started stealing alcohol, stealing wine coolers, thinking I was older. That's when it all started, and it took off very quickly, man. I started tagging, became a little vandal, destroying property, just writing my name on stuff. And that influence of negativity — tagging, cliquish, like gangs, gang ideas and drugs — it took off very fast, man. I got arrested. I got picked up by the cops the first time around eleven. Luckily, I just got taken home. But a couple of times like that, they picked me up, took me to juvenile hall, didn't actually arrest me, but took me to scare me, and my mom.
Chris Luera: So at a really young age, I started getting put in handcuffs, and the drug use progressed fast. I think I was about 13, 14 years old when I was already smoking crack cocaine.
Tom Rowland: Wow.
Chris Luera: And I was lost hope, like, for myself, honestly. I was buying crack cocaine, and the guys I was buying it from were like, dude, you selling this stuff? Like, you flipping, little homie. Because even they were like, holy shit, this is a little ass kid.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Tom Rowland: But there was basically nobody there. And those people aren't going to say, no, man, go do something else. This isn't the place for you. That's not the kind of people that those were, right?
Chris Luera: No, no. The ones that were selling it, they just wanted their money. But it was a trip to them at my young age. And I'm a little guy, even from my age now. I'm not the tallest dude. So at a young age, I looked younger as it is. So I'm rolling up on a bike bigger than me, trying to buy some crack. And they'd be like, jeez, man. What's going on? But my mom that adopted me, she was there. And she was on top of things, man.
Chris Luera: Honestly, a lot of people assume that because I had elderly parents, I just got away with murder, they didn't know what's going on, or they kinda let it go. Dude, my mom put me in jail more times than I put myself in jail.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. And so what happened there? Did she pass away? What happened?
Chris Luera: She was with me the whole time. And now she's the reason why I'm still here breathing. Because, like I said, at such a young age, I was smoking crack. I started tagging, I got into street gangs and prison gangs. And at 14, 15 years old, I already had been in juvenile hall so many times and smoking crack and just being so low on myself that I gave up. I was already realizing that, okay, I came from drug addicts. They overdosed and died. They never got away from their addiction. I'm heavily in my addiction at this young age. This is gonna be it for me.
Chris Luera: And my mother that adopted me, she was in my ear all the time, like, you can change. You can change this. And for years, from 12 years old all the way to just about 24, I was going in and out of prison, in and out of jail. I did three juvenile camp terms, a placement term. I was sent to Utah for a boarding school. I did three adult prison terms. And all that time, she was there saying that I could change. She kept hope alive inside me that maybe. Maybe.
Tom Rowland: And did you think that that was a possibility? Did you even wanna change at that time? Because there was a big part of your book that was really interesting to me about you getting these assignments from people higher up in the gang world than you. And you even said it. Like, I felt like I might as well have been in a Fortune 500 company, and this was like the ladder stepping your way down, really, but up into the gang world.
Tom Rowland: And that's pretty interesting to me because you had a lot of motivation. You wanted to be a soldier when you were a kid, and this is all kinda like they're telling you what to do, and you're going and doing it, and you're being rewarded, getting higher and higher in the gang world, but your mother there is in your ear saying you can change. Did you even want to at that time? Were there times where you just said, no, man, this is it. I'm going all the way down this road?
Chris Luera: I told her every time. I told her, I love you so much, and you're such an amazing soul, but it's not for me. It's not what's written for me. I gave up on myself, and I would tell her all the time. My stepbrother and sister from her biological kids that she raised, my whole family, everybody around her in her circle was like, you gotta let this kid go. This kid is dragging you to the ocean floor, and he's telling you. So the whole time, I never accepted it. I loved her for being there and being supportive and just giving me love.
Chris Luera: But with the last prison term that I was in, I had just got into a riot right after talking to my sister on the phone. And she had told me that my mom was sick. It was just the flu, but she said, oh, mom's sick. And I told her that if mom passes away ever and I'm in prison, if it happens to line up with my points and my security level at the time, you can pay to go to someone like your mother's funeral.
Tom Rowland: Mhmm.
Chris Luera: It's a lot of money. You have to pay guards to escort you there and yada yada. But it's doable if you pay the money. So I was telling her, if it's all eligible and if that's the case, I need you to do that. I'll pay the money. I swear to you, I'll work the rest of my life. I just have to say goodbye to her. And she was like, why don't you stop going in there? Why don't you just stop? And I was like, oh, yeah, that's so easy for you to say.
Chris Luera: And then after I got off the phone with her, it was like ten minutes after, I got into a riot. My prison gang got into a riot with this other gang and it kicked off, and then we ended up going to the hole. And I was in the hole for a little over three months. And while I was in there, I kept hearing my sister saying, why don't you stop going in there? Why don't you stop going in there?
Chris Luera: And when you're in the hole, everything's super restricted. You don't have a lot of amenities. So I was writing a letter to my mom telling her, hey, I messed up. I'm gonna be in the hole for a few months, so I won't be able to call. But if you could please send me some money on my books or maybe a package. I really need some deodorant and some soap and stuff. And it hit me while I was writing that letter that she was gonna do it.
Chris Luera: I knew. I was writing her this letter, and I was like, I know that when she gets this letter, maybe she'll wait a week or a few days, but she's gonna send the money. She's gonna take care of me like that. And I was like, man, dude, I've been taking from this woman my whole life. When I was not messing up and I was four, five, six years old, I was just a child taking from her. And then after that, I just started taking more. I started robbing her and stealing from her, breaking her heart, never coming home, doing everything she asked me not to do — I did it tenfold.
Chris Luera: And so I was sitting in the hole, and I was like, I really need to tell this woman thank you. How can I let her know that I'm grateful? I tell her every time I write her letters, thank you so much, I love you. But it's probably just falling on deaf ears by now because I don't change. I'm not doing anything.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Chris Luera: So I had the thought, when I get out of prison this time, I'm gonna give her a gift of saying thank you. I'm not gonna go directly. Every time I got out of jail, I told people verbally, I told myself, it's pedal to the metal till I hit the wall. People would be asking me, hey, what are you gonna do when you get out of jail? Oh, dude, I'm going buck wild till I end up in jail or dead again. Every single time.
Chris Luera: And so I was like, maybe this time I get out, I don't go directly to drugs. I spend a few days with her. I spend some time with her and tell her how much I appreciate her. And when I got out of jail, that's what I did. I spent the first week. I didn't leave my house, and it snowballed. I couldn't believe it. Just spending time with her, we'd go to McDonald's or something. Me, her, and my dad and a few of my little cousins, and it was an amazing thing. Her eyes showed so much joy because I had been out of jail for two days, and I wasn't high on meth.
Tom Rowland: Wow. And so at that point, what's that doing for you? Are you deciding that maybe this is — I mean, how easy is it? You're battling with addiction. You've got the gangs inside the prison, outside of the prison, all these influences on you. You're basically having to self-isolate to stay away from all of those influences. And is it just the experience of spending time with her that has a real shift in your mindset that says this is the time that you're gonna change?
Chris Luera: Honestly, it kept snowballing. I didn't have the full thought of, okay, now is the time to change, it's happening. That wasn't fully the thought when it was happening. I was just engulfed so much in her joy that I wasn't messing up at the time. And she was tougher than nails, man. She pushed me. I had been out of jail for a week, and then she was like, you gotta go get a job. You're a grown man. You're not gonna live off me. You wanna get married one day or have kids? You gotta provide. You gotta get a job. And I was like, I don't know where do I go get a job? I had no skills. I hadn't graduated high school, and I had no trades, no nothing. And so she was like, go to McDonald's, go to Subway, just fill out anything.
Chris Luera: And I learned a lot, dude. I learned a lot about myself in that time very quickly. It was a very weird thing to accept inside myself that I had a hard time walking into a Subway looking a 17-year-old kid in the eye, some high school kid, and asking if they're hiring. If I can have an application, fill it out and hand it back to this 17-year-old kid. I couldn't look him in the eye. Knowing that I had a prison background, knowing that I'm not gonna get this job probably because of my background, knowing that I wasn't qualified to work at Subway really, because I had no job experience ever.
Chris Luera: And I'm standing there as a grown man, gang member, been on prison yards through riots and things, and I'm like, I'm a tough guy. I've been through chaos. And I'm standing in a Subway in front of a 17-year-old kid, and I feel ashamed. I feel weak. I feel small. And I was like, dude, this is weird. In a different scenario, that kid would be scared as shit to interact with me.
Tom Rowland: Oh, he was probably scared interacting with you at that moment too, I'm sure. But so how did you get this first opportunity? Who gave you a chance?
Chris Luera: I got my first chance through my cousin, and it was my mom. So I filled out so many of those things, and I never got a callback. I never got a job interview. I never got a maybe or anything. I don't know if they were throwing them directly in the trash or the managers were reading them like, oh yeah, not this guy. This is not cool. But my mom was like, go do it again. And I was like, mom, I don't know where else to go. No one's getting back to me. Go do the same ones again. The ones that already said no, do it again. And I was like, but they already said no. And she's like, I don't care. And then it became a thing that, okay, all I wanna do is make her happy. So all I have to do is fill out this piece of paper, and if they don't call me back, who gives a shit? I don't care anymore, and it makes her happy.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Chris Luera: So that's what it became. And then my cousins, they turned their backyard into a venue location for weddings and parties and things like that. They decorated their backyard. And so as they were hosting weddings and baby showers and stuff like that, they kept using the same exact catering company. It was just business working with business. And my cousins, all on their own, thought of this. They thought, hey, these guys bring their own dishwasher. Maybe we can have Chris wash dishes, and then we'll just tell the catering company that we have an in-house dishwasher.
Chris Luera: And they asked me if I would be willing to wash dishes. And I was through the roof, like, dude, I'll do anything. I washed dishes in prison. I washed laundry in prison. I do whatever. Just give me an opportunity. And it was actually the perfect opportunity because it was tucked away in the back, and they don't want the dishwasher to be exposed during the wedding. So I was still very much institutionalized and didn't wanna interact with people. So I was able to just be in my own little personal bubble and work. I don't mind work. I love hard work. It makes the day go by. I enjoy the hour.
Chris Luera: So as that continued to snowball, I was working steadily now. My cousin kept pushing the catering company, giving me a little more opportunity. They're like, do you see Chris? He works hard. Give him a chance at being a waiter. And so I became a waiter. Then I got comfortable around people. And then I talked my way into becoming, like, a bar back. Not officially, because I hadn't been to bartender school. But then that was an idea, so I went to bartender school and finished that, got a certificate. Took me like three weeks. It was just memorizing, matching colors and stuff.
Tom Rowland: Well, that has to be huge for you, man. You're getting out. Somebody's giving you an opportunity. You've worked your way up kinda the same way you were doing on a bad road — you're now making these steps towards a better road, certainly. And then somewhere along the line, and the reason that I come across you and started following you on social media, is because of the exercise, the calisthenics, the bars. I follow that kind of stuff. How did that happen? How did you end up in a gym and meet these people?
Chris Luera: As I was working at the catering company, I was grinding and moving up the ladder. I bar-backed, and I started bartending. Then I started being like an event coordinator to a certain degree, doing my own events, going to the catering company. I had the keys to the building, load up all the food and the decor, and then go and host my own event. And it was building. My mom was all happy, would come home and make fun of me for my feet hurting. And it was going great.
Chris Luera: And then my mom told me about a bump on her head. I came home from work, and she was like, hey, Chris, check out this bump. And it was like the size of a marble. But it was really hard and protruded out. And I told her, you gotta get that checked. What is that? And she's like, I've had it for a while, and it doesn't hurt at all. But it turned out that it was a cancerous tumor on her brain. And when they found that, they looked into it and found cancer in her lungs. And she had already been a cancer survivor, breast cancer, so it had come back very strong.
Chris Luera: And it was very quick. She got sick, and we knew that she was sick. And it took over, man. The momentum of the ball was unbelievable. And before my family and I knew it, man, she was leaving. She was on her last days, and I just remember I was lost. I was scared. I was crying next to her on her bed. I was holding her hand. She was sleeping, and she woke up. She saw I was crying, and she was like, what's wrong? And I was like, mom, I'm so scared, and I don't wanna lose you. And she was like, I don't understand why you're scared. I'm not scared. I'm ready. I've seen everything here, and I'm ready to see what's next.
Chris Luera: And that courage, it hit me. It shook a chord inside me that this amazing woman is literally lying on her deathbed, and I was scared. I was thinking about me. I was like, I'm scared. I don't wanna lose you. I don't know what to do without you. And she was like, I'm not scared. And I'm like, how can I be scared if she's not scared? She's going into the unknown, and she's ready. She was ready. And she passed away on my birthday, in 2012, and it shattered me, man, honestly.
Tom Rowland: When that happened, did you ever think maybe you might start heading down this old familiar road that you had been down so many other times, or did you stay on the high road?
Chris Luera: I didn't relapse. I didn't go back to drugs. I didn't go back to drinking, because I don't drink anymore either. But I didn't care. I didn't wanna do drugs because I knew that's not what she wanted, but I honestly didn't care. When she was here and I was working and just seeing the joy and the interaction that we had, that connection, I was in the place of, I'll never do drugs again. I don't wanna do drugs. I found something so much greater, so I'll never touch that again.
Chris Luera: But when she passed away, I honestly just didn't care anymore. I was suicidal, dude. I grew up Catholic. I went to Catholic school. So it's always been grounded in me that you don't commit suicide. Suicide is the ultimate sin. You go to purgatory. And I believe that my mom's in heaven, and I just wanted to be with her again. And I was so suicidal, dude. I didn't leave my house. I stopped working. Because I worked for a catering company, it was on call. So I didn't necessarily quit. I just didn't book any more jobs. I just stayed home. And so I was wasting away. I wasn't eating, wasn't going out. I was dying, dude.
Tom Rowland: Mhmm.
Chris Luera: And I wanted to commit suicide, honestly. I wanted to be with my mom. I wanted to die. I wanted it to end. And I ended up going to the gym. A few people around me were mentioning the gym, just, you know, get out, do something. A lot of my family thought I was using drugs again because of the way I looked and the way that I wasn't coming around no more. So a lot of family was already starting to write me off, saying that they think I'm gonna end up back in prison.
Chris Luera: So I had the thought that I'm gonna go to the gym to try to exhaust myself so that I can sleep. I remember being in prison, part of my prison gang was mandatory workouts. So being stressed out in prison and then having to work out because it was mandatory, and then realizing, hey, I feel a little better after the workout, it releases endorphins. And so I was like, okay, if I go to the gym and just walk or run on the treadmill for two hours, three hours, I'm gonna get to a breaking point where my body is just gonna exhaust out.
Chris Luera: So that's what I was doing. I went to a gym in Long Beach called Metroflex, which is like an insane gym. I'm not bashing any gyms, but it's not an LA Fitness. These guys there, they live and breathe their weights. So walking in there is just motivation or intimidation. What the heck's going on? So I liked being there, just because I wasn't doing nothing. I was trying to grind, but these guys were working so hard.
Chris Luera: And I literally saw some guys doing muscle-ups. I never seen a muscle-up in my life. I did a lot of prison time, did a lot of pull-ups, a lot of dips, but I just never had seen a muscle-up. And I remember, I had some dumbbells in my hand, I was messing around, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw this guy do a muscle-up, and it looked bonkers to me. He went up, and I was like, what the heck? So he drew my attention. And when I looked, he did it again. He came down and went up again, and it looked like he was on wires. Like the pull-up assist machine. He was here, and then the bar was to his hip.
Chris Luera: I was like, damn, dude, that dude's freakishly strong. That's crazy. And then he got down, and another guy from his group attacked the bar. He kinda ran at it, jumped up, grabbed it, did a muscle-up, and then did a three-sixty, and then caught the bar again, and then jumped down. It was real quick — boom, boom, boom, boom. And I was like, what the hell was that? That was some rollerblader X Games fitness. It's so funny to me that I honestly thought that, and it wasn't even gymnastics. I didn't think, oh, gymnastics, that's gymnastics. I was just like, oh, X Games. I was so clueless. And I was literally like, whoa, dude, these guys are seriously doing some crazy shit.
Chris Luera: And one of the dudes saw me. Hey, bro, you wanna try that? Can you do muscle-ups? And I was like, bro, I don't know what you're doing. I don't know what that is. And he was like, try it, bro. Get up there. Try a muscle-up. Try to do a pull-up all the way on top of the bar. And my ego kicked in. Shit, I've been in prison, a lot of pull-ups. But I've been coming off, like, a six, seven-month depression. I've been in my house. I'm pale. I ain't got no sun. I was super skinny. I was like a hundred and thirty pounds. And I was like, yeah, I think I can do it. Got on the — I couldn't even do a pull-up. I tried to get the bar to my forehead. Humbled real quick. Like, dang, dude. Got down. Hung out with the guys for like thirty, forty minutes. And then they're like, hey, man, we're gonna take off. Cool, man. Nice to meet you guys.
Chris Luera: And I remember I went back to the gym a couple of times to hopefully run into them again. And I did. And then they invited me out to Venice Beach. They're like, hey, bro, we're out here at Venice Beach every Sunday. Come out here, man. So I went out there to Venice, and it was an amazing day. I was out there from like eleven in the morning to sunset. And I was burnt, dude. My upper body just sunburn, doing pull-ups and push-ups and dips and everything for all that time. I was so broken.
Tom Rowland: Is this like a lightning strike for you? Like, is this a moment where it's like lightning strikes and you're like, this is it, I found it? I don't have a lot of experience with depression, but I do know what it feels like, and it's not good at all. And when you start to come out of that, that's really an amazing experience where it's just like you take this old wet heavy blanket off and you're in the sun for the first time, and it's like, yeah, now there's hope. Like, I can see this path. Is that the kind of thing that you were experiencing on this day, now you found these people, they're positive, you're exercising, and you see this path to getting back to normal?
Chris Luera: That was exactly it, dude. Honestly, I didn't think much of the actual thing other than just the workout. I just wanted to do it the next day. The day was coming into an end, the sunset. Everyone was leaving. Alright, man, good to meet you. You guys have a good night. And I felt down. Shit, I gotta go back to my bedroom. I gotta go back to my house. And I was like, I can't wait till tomorrow. I'm gonna do this again because it was so awesome.
Tom Rowland: You had to be sore as hell, though.
Chris Luera: Oh, I was broken, dude.
Tom Rowland: I mean, man, if you're not doing pull-ups at all and you just start doing a whole bunch of pull-ups, that's probably as sore as you ever get. Your hands are probably torn up. Everything's torn up.
Chris Luera: Yeah. Calluses on the hand. You can barely claw your hands. But I couldn't wait for it. And the next day, I was broken. I was doing dips. And I was so happy to be doing it again. It took over my life. I just wanted to work out all the time. I just wanted to be around these guys, this group of people.
Tom Rowland: And so what was it about the group of people that was such a big part of this for you?
Chris Luera: They accepted me. And they were positive people. They were trying to teach one another how to get stronger, helping one another, and they accepted me. I remember I was letting my hair grow out a little bit because I have tattoos on both sides of my head. I'm all covered in tattoos, but I didn't want head tattoos to be a little more next level. So I wanted so bad to be accepted by these people. And it was never a thing. I strived to try to be accepted by them, trying to hide tattoos, didn't really talk about my prison and gang background in the beginning for a long time, for months, hanging out with them. But it was never a thing.
Tom Rowland: But they knew.
Chris Luera: They knew. Later, they became my really close friends, and a couple of them that I became real close with, they're like, bro, when I first saw you the first time on the beach, I was like, what the hell? Who the hell is this guy? What the hell is this guy doing here?
Tom Rowland: Right. But they were very accepting and very open and super positive. And so for a person that's in that position, you're in this really extreme position. You're in this super depression because your mom just died, but you're also coming from this whole other world. And you're meeting up with these people and doing something that you're getting some great feelings out of. So how important is it that they were positive? It seems like just one little comment could have been the difference between you feeling like, man, I knew it, those guys are gonna be a bunch of jerks, and they're not gonna accept me. And that didn't happen. It was the other way. Hey, man, come on over, check this out. How important is that to somebody in that situation? Just that one little opportunity.
Chris Luera: It was everything. It was everything, honestly. I carry so much self-hatred for the things I've done, the pain I've caused, everything that's all built up and pent up inside me like a water balloon. A big water balloon of all this pressure and pain that I carry of how I look at who I used to be. And this group that I wanted to be part of, if one thing, dude, one thing, if they would have been like, you criminal — I don't know what, but just one, a pinprick to a water balloon, it would have been over. And it never happened, dude.
Tom Rowland: So for just the regular listener, how important is it, or how can we apply that to our lives? You see somebody that's hurting, take it to any extreme. The kindest, gentlest extreme — there's somebody eating by themselves at a table at work, and they're new there. How can people apply that to their life and show positivity and give somebody a chance and be inviting and have an open heart? How does the regular person bring that into their life or realize the importance of that?
Chris Luera: To realize the importance of it, I'm not sure how to realize it. There's, like, memes or different things I've seen on Instagram where it's a thing that the person that will walk by and smile at a complete stranger, they're the special ones in this world. And that's what I try to practice now. Being someone that has been depressed, and I struggle with depression still, actively — this pandemic has kicked up things — and knowing the struggles I've gone through with depression or drug addiction or the loss of my mom or being adopted as a child.
Chris Luera: I just know from experience, or remember painful times, that I had a smile on my face, or I was going about my day, but I was carrying a lot inside. And the people that have smiled to me — just getting off the elevator, and you go eye to eye to someone, and they smile, like, that's the highlight of my day. It's not much.
Tom Rowland: Makes a big difference. It's like — I read it in a book. There's things that are easy to do, but easier not to do. Those are the things that, if you focus on those, you can take that into your training, you can take it to whatever. That example right there — do you take the time to smile at somebody when they walk off the elevator? Do you take the time to invite somebody over to eat at your table? Those are things that are really easy to do, but it's also easier not to do them. It's easier to divert your eyes. It's easier to just keep on going and be in your own little world. But those little things, man — when I read your book and I'm hearing you tell this story, it's like that little opportunity for that group to be like, man, this guy looks a little different, but let's bring him in. Let's ask him if he wants to come over. He might not. But they were open, inviting. That was obviously a really big point in this whole turnaround for you.
Tom Rowland: And then it leads to you getting more involved in this group and learning that there is a competitive element to what you're doing. And you're being very humble because I'm looking behind you there. I see all the trophies, but then you go on to become three-time world champion in this competition. The Battle of the Bars is one of them, and traveling all over the world. That one day really opened up a tremendous opportunity for you, but you had to walk through the door, man. That door's open, but you had to walk through, and then you have to do a tremendous amount of work.
Tom Rowland: I found it really super interesting, that part about the book, because I'm really interested in how exercise affects people and how exercise can pull people out of depression, and how exercise can help you deal with minor stress or major stress. And then also the camaraderie of a group and having some kind of a group. Some people get that with church. Some people get that with a CrossFit gym. Some people get that with a golf group or any kind of group. It's like, you know, they might like golf kinda. What they really like is hanging out with this group. And the same thing with CrossFit. There's so many people that never really exercised much in their whole life, and they find a CrossFit gym, and now it's almost like a religion. Do they really like doing power cleans and burpees that much, or did they find something in this group that is filling a big void that they had in their life? And that seems like that was a big part of it for you too. The competition and the calisthenics and the muscle-ups, that was a really big part, but it also seemed like this group really pulled you into a whole new direction, a whole new world.
Chris Luera: Totally. The group, the positivity, they're very, very positive. And they were literally building each other. Every time we met at the beach, I watched — because I come from San Pedro, they come from Long Beach and Pasadena and Santa Clarita, all of these different places that come together to drive an hour. Each of us are driving an hour to meet up in one location just to share information on how to get stronger with each other. And this group, it was building and building. But what it was for me, that built in me with it, was just wanting to be positive.
Chris Luera: My first competition, I was pushed into it. I had only been training for eight or nine months, and a good friend of mine, Kenneth Gallarzo, is the vice president of the WCO, the Battle of the Bars. He was like, hey, dude, we're doing a battle, and I signed you up. You're gonna be in the battle. And I was like, dude, I'm not ready. And he was like, bro, you are ready, but I need 16 people to fill these slots, or we can't have a tournament.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Chris Luera: We need athletes. So you gotta do me a favor, and you gotta do it. And I'm like, alright. Well, that's how he got me in it. Like, you're gonna do it. I was real nervous. This guy from Germany was flying in, and I was like, oh, you know. My friends in my circle that were there, they were telling me, hey, man, you're gonna win. We know you're gonna win. And I'm like, I don't think so, man. I might fall apart under pressure.
Tom Rowland: So let's just do a little update of this. This type of competition, for people that might not understand it — you're gonna have a routine, or you have a certain time limit, or how does it work? And then you're judged, right?
Chris Luera: The competition itself has evolved over time. My very first one that we're just talking about that I won, it was a routine. I had two minutes to do, like, street gymnastics. On the high bar, the rings, the parallel bars, the floor. And as it has adapted now, the competitions are held like an MMA fight. So it's like — if you ever seen a breakdance battle — it's like a breakdance battle of gymnastics. So you have two guys that are matched up in weight classes, like an MMA fight, and then they go head up. So one person can do like an iron cross or some type of high level, a planche, or a front lever. Next person has their chance to go back and match them or outdo them.
Tom Rowland: Okay.
Chris Luera: And they go back and forth for three rounds. One winner, one loser. So it's just like a fight or like a breakdance battle, but with gymnastic movements.
Tom Rowland: So that's basically evolved from playgrounds and places where people are working out, and that's what you're doing anyway. Let's see what you can do. Let's see what I can do. And then it's like, yeah, this could be a pretty entertaining competition. I'll follow those things, bar stars, and all those things on Instagram and watch. It's really cool. But that becomes a real competition, and then you traveled all over the world to do this, right?
Chris Luera: Yeah. When I did that first competition, the one where my buddy signed me up for it, it was held at the LA Fit Expo, which is like a fitness expo. And I never been to one of those before. So going there and seeing pre-workout, proteins, all these supplement companies, and bikinis — it's a wild scene.
Tom Rowland: It's a wild scene at those things, man. It's like a boat show. I go to a lot of boat shows, and it's the same kind of deal. It's like a carnival.
Chris Luera: Exactly, a carnival. They'd have lights, and they're drawing your attention. Come over here, and some girl with barely any clothes on is trying to sell you a headband for some reason. And you're like, what's going on? It's wild. So I was like, intoxicated. Like, oh, this is what fitness people do? This is why people go to the gym. And when I won that competition — I don't know if you know who Bella Falconi is. She's a very big fitness figure. So Bella Falconi was handing out the trophies at that first competition. And I didn't know that there were fitness celebrities, let alone who the celebrities were.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Chris Luera: So when I was there competing, a lot of the athletes and people were like, dude, Bella Falconi is the one that's passing out the trophies. And they're all pumped up. And so when I won the competition, and this celebrity was giving me the trophy, and everybody was in the stands clapping, and it was going nuts. There was a DJ doing all this. And my grandmother — she's not actually my grandmother, but in my family everyone just calls her Grandma Weta. She's my sister-in-law's mom. But she grew up with my mom, my adopted mom. Crazy story that they grew up in school together as friends. And when they grew up and got married and had children, she had a daughter and my mom had a son, and then their kids got married. So who's really my sister-in-law's mother knew my mom since they were little kids.
Chris Luera: And she came to my competition. She was there when I won, and they gave me the trophy. And I remember going up to her. I had the trophy, and she was crying, and my family was crying. And I was so excited, and she put her hands on my face like this, and she looked so deep into my eyes. And she was like, your mom would be so proud of you. And that was it. I was like, okay, I'm done. I know what I'm doing. This is it. I'm not doing catering no more, no more bartending. I know what I'm doing. This is it.
Tom Rowland: Is there any money in that? Do you win money too?
Chris Luera: That competition, I won like $250. I quit my job after that. People were like, dude, how are you gonna work? How are you gonna make money? I was like, I don't know yet, but I didn't care. My mom, when she would come to see me, she would put me in jail a lot of times. And then she'd come see me in jail after she called the cops on me. And then she would tell me, I love you, and I know that there is something great, something amazing in this world waiting for you, if you're willing to work for it. And I would tell her all the time, mom, I love you, you're an amazing soul, it's not for me. And she would tell me over and over, there's something waiting for you if you're willing to work for it, but you have to work for it. It's not gonna be given to you.
Chris Luera: And when I got that trophy and my grandma was like, your mom would be so proud, I was like, this is what she was talking about. She was right. And I threw away so many years. I could have been on this track so much sooner, so I gotta go hard. And I just submerged myself in the world as much as I could. It's all I did. I lived and breathed it. I quit my job, got my first NASM book — National Academy of Sports Medicine — became a personal trainer, and everything from that point forward was fitness. I'm competing, I'm training for a competition, or I'm coaching somebody. The lightning hit at the beach that first day — wow, this is really gonna help me, I love this, and I wanna keep doing this. The lightning set everything on fire that day at the competition when my grandma was like, your mom would be so proud of you. I was like, that's it. This is what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life.
Tom Rowland: Wow, that's super cool. Man, I could hear these stories all day, but I do wanna ask you some questions. So you come from a place where there was incredible negativity in a lot of ways. You had incredible negativity in your own mind, and then you have this opportunity to where you see positivity and you're around these positive people, and it puts you on a different track. So in your mind, how would you describe a negative mindset versus a positive mindset?
Chris Luera: Cancer. A negative mindset against a positive mindset — excuse my language, but you're fucked.
Tom Rowland: Mhmm. So let's think about that just a little bit deeper. A negative mindset — in your opinion, what is a negative mindset? How do you think versus how you think for a positive mindset?
Chris Luera: I believe it starts with yourself. So if you're down on yourself, then you're gonna be down on others, and you're gonna be down on everything else too. So a negative mindset, I've noticed in people, like joking, people will be like, oh, I'm way too fat for that. Or I can never do something like that because I can't. And it's like, okay, if you ask that person, hey, do you have a negative mindset, or are you depressed? Like, nah, the hell are you talking about? So, last couple weeks we've been hanging out, it's kind of a common thing that you kinda bash yourself. You're I'm too this or I'm not enough that. And I feel that that is a negative mindset. That's maybe the beginning stages, or whatever. It's just, that continues on without being checked, without being assessed and cleaned.
Chris Luera: Like a car, anything that you want to run properly for a long time, it has to be cleaned. It has to have maintenance. And that's the thing that we don't really recognize or think about. A big thing is self-maintenance. Am I checking in with myself? What have I been eating lately? Not even if you're some health kick and you wanna be a six-pack fitness guy. But the thing is, what have I been eating lately? What have I been telling myself lately? What have I been watching? What have I been reading? What is my intake?
Tom Rowland: Mhmm.
Chris Luera: So, I love The Walking Dead. I love crazy stuff like that, complete fiction chaos. But things that are self-growth, things that are self-help, something that makes — even if it's not something like a book about a certain thinking pattern that helps people. Maybe you're not going to change your thinking pattern to that thinking pattern, but reading that, thinking that, that's just food for health. You're trying to think in a way of positivity. So that's something that I feel that a negative mind cannot necessarily be, quote unquote, a negative mind, or be recognized in the person of having a negative mind. I feel like if you neglect yourself from giving yourself good nutrition in all aspects, whether that be physical, mental, and nutrition, like, as in food and everything else, if you're not checking that, then you're in a negative mindset. Because you're not positively trying to grow.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, I love it. That's awesome. And then one of the things that I just kept thinking about when I was reading your book is, it's an extreme case. You're in a super extreme case of limiting beliefs, of thinking badly about yourself, or being on this negative road, even though you're working really hard going down this negative road. If you could just channel that into positivity, you could work really hard to be a world champion, which you did. But I'm looking at this, and I'm like, man, if he can overcome the limiting beliefs of, man, I'm a career criminal, I'll never be able to get out and live in the regular world, this is not for me — all of the things that you've said, even during the time that we've talked here, when you're talking to your mom, that's not written for me. That's a negative mindset.
Tom Rowland: To be able to change that and turn it around and change those limiting beliefs to having no limiting beliefs, like, I can be a world champion, I can live this life on this high road, I can quit my job and create this new life for myself. If you can change that in those extreme situations, how can somebody just change that, like the guy you were talking about — I'm too fat to do a pull-up, or I could never do that. And maybe they're really super successful and they're on a positive road, but they still have these real limiting beliefs that, if they could just overcome those things, life could be whatever they wanted it to be. What are your thoughts on overcoming the limiting beliefs?
Chris Luera: So my thought pattern on things like that is, Nike has the greatest slogan — just do it. Just do it. And that's the thing. I don't know, honestly, because in my situation, it snowballed. I got out of prison thinking, okay, I'm gonna give my mom a gift and say thank you for all the years that she's been here. And if she dies and I'm still this prisoner, I at least want her to know how grateful I was the whole time. Even though it seemed like I was just taking from her and I didn't give a shit, I really was grateful the whole time. And that was the only thing that I was really after — to make sure she understood that I was grateful.
Chris Luera: And then seeing the joy in her gave me more fuel to do more and do more. And then, working hard to go down the ladder, I can work just as hard to go up the ladder. That kicked in, and that happened. But that's a huge thing about me writing my book and me sharing my story. I'm not sure, because in my case, my whole thing turned around because I was only trying to tell my mom thank you. When I first did it, my whole thought was I'm probably gonna mess up.
Tom Rowland: Yeah.
Chris Luera: I'm so addicted to drugs that if I don't do drugs for six months, it'll be amazing for her. But let's just be real, I'm probably gonna relapse. I mean, I've been doing drugs since I was 11. And so as it kept getting stronger and stronger — no, I'm not gonna relapse. No, I'm not gonna relapse. That was just building on itself. But to pull the trigger to say, you can change — that's the big thing about my book. Because at 13, 14 years old, I accepted, okay, I'm never gonna change. I'm gonna die inside one of these boxes, or I'm gonna die on the street either strung out on drugs or doing some stupid gang crap. I'm gonna die dumb. I accepted it.
Chris Luera: So for me to be where I am today, it's doable. It highlights to me, as a person that has lived many years of my life understanding that it's not doable — it's not. And now that I live and breathe the example that change is possible, that's what I'm trying to share.
Tom Rowland: Very interesting.
Chris Luera: It has to be the Nike, just do it. Hey, man, if you think you're too fat to do a pull-up, guess what? How you gonna do your pull-up? Get your ass on a pull-up bar. Even if it's just hanging from it, you gotta do it. But the thing is, if you sit there in yourself and you're like, I can't do it because I'm too fat, I can't do it because I'm blah blah blah — my book, I have a book about my life that you can read that will tell you it's doable. I don't know how you're gonna find it inside you, but there's a prime example of someone that never thought and fought tooth and nail against himself, but still was able to get to a point of change.
Chris Luera: And the only message — the huge message — is that it's doable. It has nothing to do with me. People are like, oh man, you're a world champion, you're so strong. I'm like, bro, I'm just going to the beach and working out. I was blessed that I live in California, and I get to do pull-ups in a beautiful area. I get to watch sunset, and it's just easier for me to do pull-ups for four hours. And that's all it is. I'm just a guy that just grinds, dude. And if you're willing to put your nose against the stone and grind and grind and grind, it's doable. Period. It's doable.
Tom Rowland: I love it. Man, you got a lot to teach the world. You really do. And you've got a great story, and you really should be honored for sharing that, because I know that probably wasn't all that easy to put that out there and not know what in the world's gonna happen when you put that out there. But I think you did it for a great reason, and I think that you're gonna help a lot of people. So kudos to you, man. Congratulations on that. And congratulations on turning your life around and being a world champion.
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