Whether it be coaching or competing, Zander Guckian has taken his experience in fitness and used it to further his career goals. Guckian has been involved in the fitness world in one way or another throughout his entire life. He quite literally went to “Olympic” gym instead of daycare with his dad growing up.
“When you’re a three year old little kid, and all your closest friends are 50-year-old jacked dudes, that tends to lead you in a particular direction in life,” Guckian said.
Guckian played football until his first year of high school when he quit playing to pursue another athletic endeavor, powerlifting. During his time powerlifting, he earned second place in the 2021 IPL Drug Tested World Championship, but then stopped competing. His next goal was to follow in his dad’s footsteps, Jason Guckian class of ‘99, by attending Trinity. Zander Guckian was offered a job from Head Football Coach, Jerheme Urban, and accepted the position of lead football assistant. His role entailed helping out with the football equipment, fields and weightroom training.
“When I got to [Trinity], I was so much smaller than everybody else that that almost was kind of the spark that got me back into training,” Guckian said. “So I started eating a whole lot of food. I was on, like, 6,000 calories for two years, and started working out again and just trying to build back everything that I had lost. During that [time], I kind of reignited my love for strength and conditioning.”
In his time away from strength training, Guckian struggled with anorexia. He explained how he was able to recover and find himself again throughout the year.
“When I was anorexic, I lost such a big part of who I was and such a big part of my identity because I had given up lifting,” Guckian said. “That blessing of just those guys and those coaches and all of the support staff being there for me — in a time that they probably didn’t even know they were being there for me — reintroduced that whole concept of being strong and being a better man through being strong, encouraging better values, through sports.”
Guckian became a known figure among Trinity students for other reasons, notably selling “Freedom Soap,” and having an active social media presence. Throughout his time at Trinity, Guckian said he has changed, but it doesn’t mean his public perception has.
“Whenever I say something, everybody hears it, and everybody hears about it, and then that gets distorted and put through all these different lenses of people’s own personal experiences and how they view me,” Guckian said. “I think there’s definitely bad that exists in that, because I feel like, right now I’m the Zander that I’ve always been my entire life, and at that one singular moment in my life, I wasn’t me. And it was because I was going through so much pain and I hadn’t learned how to deal with it yet.”
Head Strength Coach for the football team, Burt Stuart, nicknamed “Coach Stu,” helped Guckian get certified with the National Strength and Conditioning Association for his coaching and training career. Guckian took his knowledge of coaching and building strength and created his own company, “Fit For Freedom.” Fit For Freedom offers a range of supplements and coaching programs that can be tailored to powerlifting athletes, or just anyone who wants to improve their health or fitness. Services include online coaching as well, allowing him to reach more people. Guckian explained how he turned his holistic view of training into his company.
“The whole idea behind Fit For Freedom, even just the name, is that you’re freeing your body, and you’re freeing your mind and you’re freeing your spirit from everything that is holding you down.”
The company has taken him in many different directions, inducing a summer strength and conditioning coaching job at Davenport High School. For the next three years, Guckian plans to pursue his master’s in education at Trinity and continue coaching. Next year, another member of the Guckian family will be joining the football team: his younger brother Declan.
“When Declan chose to go here, it was one of the proudest moments of my entire life,” Guckian said. “I think that sports has really helped me and him grow close together … for Declan, it was football, and that’s what I know, that’s what I was good at. That’s what my dad was good at. It’s just really cool to see him coming here and continuing that kind of legacy.”
Guckian plans to get his masters in education at Trinity and then go to the National Football League to work as an assistant strength coach.
“Where I see myself, long-term, end-of-career goals is, I want to go back to a college somewhere and be a university strength coach and give back everything that Coach Stu has given to me and everything that the coaches here have done for me, I want to be able to give that back to other people as well,”
Guckian discussed his progress over the last few years and what it means to him.
“When I came in as a [first-year] it was like a very different version of me that had ever existed, ever in my life. I think honestly, me now is more similar to how I’ve been forever,” Guckian said. “I feel like the Zander that exists now is really the actual Zander that existed when I was a kid. And so it’s really freeing to be able to just go back to that and know who I am.”
*This article was updated on Sept. 29 to correct a punctuation mistake.
