Coach Spotlight: Eddie Kuehne

Coach: Eddie Kuehne

What do your parents or spouse call you when you are in trouble?

Edward Arthur

Do you have any embarrassing nicknames? What are they?

People at various workplaces have used Steady Eddie. Earned by being boringly reliable and relatively unflappable. 

What actor or actress would you like to play you in a movie?

Tough question. I’m picking Ryan Reynolds though. He did a nice job in Safe House and Deadpool. Love the sense of humor and timing he brings. Much easier on the eyes than I am too.

How long have you been coaching?

3 years

Have you had other careers, or currently work in another field? What are they?

Ha! Career transitions are my specialty. Soldier, athletic trainer, brewmaster, financial analyst, business intelligence director, planning system consultant, and currently working as a contract IT project manager, while transitioning to full time coach.

Who’s your favorite BLOC client? (JK, don’t answer that.)

All of the clients that show up and put in the work.

Who’s your least favorite BLOC client? (JK, again.)

They have all been fun to work with, even the challenging ones. 🙂

If you could time travel back to when you first started coaching, what advice would you give yourself?

Three things. 1) Hire a coach and become a good lifter, which someone told me and I did. Thank you, Charity! 2) Go through the barbell coaching academy. It wasn’t available then but if it was, that’s what I’d do. 3) Practice coaching people in person with purpose and a goal to improve on one aspect of coaching every session.  

What are some of your favorite things to do when you’re not working or training?

Do hoodrat stuff with my GRT (GoRuck) friends. Like summit nearby mountains, tacos and beer rucks, GORUCK events, and any of the local veteran charity events. I enjoy a good burger or cheesesteak, love dogs and have a weakness for expensive bourbon. 

What is your favorite lift?

Squat

Where do you live?

Henderson, NV

What is your favorite animal print?

Black Panther

Gym cat, dog or something else?

dog

How long have you been training?

Since I was 13. Actual training started 4 years ago.

What is the most embarrassing moment from any dark days of “lifting” that you may have had?

I spent a ridiculous sum of money for the “Cybergenics Bodybuilding” program when I was in high school. Included with all the bogus supplements was a training program that called for using isolation movements to pre-exhaust the muscle before doing compound movements, both to complete failure.

This included eccentric failure, meaning you would have someone help you lift the weight up and you would lower it until you couldn’t lower it under control anymore. I did a week of these workouts and could barely move. Never been that sore before or since.

This was in addition to fasted cardio in the morning and more cardio at night – 6 days a week. Needless to say, that program ended quickly and with great pain.

What do you love about training? 

The results. I’m in the last half of my life and don’t have anymore time to waste on silly bullshit that doesn’t work.

What do you love about coaching? 

I love seeing the transformation it makes in people. The physical changes and the mental changes. Many times this is the first really hard physical activity that a client has done. Seeing them realize they are capable of so much more than they thought, warms my heart.

I believe doing hard things like training consistently, adding more weight to the bar every time and facing the fear of failure makes better people. They get physically stronger, mentally tougher and are more resilient to the pain and suffering that visits everyone during their life. It also makes them more useful to the people around them. It’s a way we can help each other and make the world a better place. Iron sharpens iron, baby.

What lifting achievement are you most proud of?

Deadlifting 5×420 and squating 5×390 after losing 30 lbs of fat.

Would you rather magically increase each of your PRs by 20%, or magically increase one of your lifts by 100%?

Magically increase each of my PRs by 20%.

Would you rather not have to eat food and have your ideal body composition, or get to eat 6,000 calories per day and have your ideal body composition?

Get to eat 6,000 calories per day and have my ideal body composition.

How many lifting-related shirts do you own? 

0-10 

What or who gets you to train when your motivation is really low?

Inappropriate memes from veteran owned companies 

Pre-workout of choice

The blood of my enemies, souls of the weak, bananas

What are some of your go-to lifting songs?

Push it – Static X, Bad Mother F*cker – Kid Rock/Machine Gun Kelly, What’s up Danger – Black Caviar remix or anything from Five Finger Death Punch 

What is the most embarrassing song you like?

Taki Taki

What are some of your lifting-related goals for this year? 

Deadlift 500, Squat 5×405

Do you plan on competing in a meet this year? If so, what are your goals?

Yes in 2020, new press PR

What have you learned about yourself from barbell training?

That I’m just hitting my prime. 

Who is someone you’d love to try barbell training and why?

Travis Kauffman, the trail runner in Colorado Springs that strangled a mountain lion who attacked him. If he was bigger and stronger he could have ended that fight a lot sooner. 

Do you have a role model? Who is it and why?

My Grandfather. Kind and fair to everyone but always stood his ground for what he believed in.

Dead or alive, who would you love to lift with?

The Rock, mostly for the cheat meals.

If BLOC made a yearbook, which do you think you’d most likely win?

Most likely to spend all their money on gym gear

How much do you love to eat? 1 – It’s a chore … 5 – What are we eating next???

5

What’s your favorite meal? Please use as much detail as possible.

I’ve had some fantastic meals in really nice restaurants. They are a great experience when you have good company to share it with. But my favorite meal is a large Capriotti’s cheesesteak, double meat, double cheese with hot and sweet peppers, grilled mushrooms, grilled onions. I’ll take a double old fashioned with Old Forrester 1920 about an hour afterwards, once the flavor of the sandwich is gone. I’m a simple man.

What was your favorite childhood TV show?

New adventures of Johnny Quest

What is a movie that you have watched over and over and over again?

All the Bourne and John Wick movies

Tell us your best dad joke. 

What’s brown and sticky? A stick!

What advice do you have for a new lifter? Or a lifter who’s been doing this a while? 

You will have aches and pains. Sometimes you will have to train around an injury. Don’t listen to the voice of weakness inside you. Keep training. Being strong is worth it.

Anything else you would like to share with your BLOC brethren and sistren? 

It’s an honor to be part of this community of kick ass people.