Question: What do you call a self-professed geek with serious guitar skills who majors in music and film?
Answer: In the case of Matt Shelvock, you call him a hell of a lot stronger than you are!
Matt in action
I first met Matt several years ago. He approached me one day while in the gym and said that he had heard me speak at a conference and that he’d love the chance to interview me for a fitness blog he was creating. Since nothing delights me more than hearing the sound of my own voice, I readily agreed.
Ever since then, we’ve kept in touch. Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Matt to discuss powerlifting, the Western Gym team and the importance of social support.
Matt, always great to get a chance to chat with you. So I’ve been following your latest exploits and saw that you recently rocked a powerlifting competition. Tell me a little about that.
Thanks. Yeah, I did really well, first place in my class actually. I competed in the 181 lbs weight class and recorded lifts of:
- squat: 485 lbs
- deadlift: 495 lbs
- bench press: 253 lbs
What it takes to squat 2.8x your body weight!
Not my best deadlift or bench press ever, but I am extremely happy with my squat performance. It was the most I’d ever squatted in competition by far.
Damn, for anyone counting at home, that’s 1233 lbs. Not only is that a ridiculous 3-lift total, but it is doubly impressive when you consider you had to do all these max lifts in the same day. How do you cope with that?
Caffeine… sweet sweet caffeine. Actually, I find that the volume of conditioning work I do really helps me handle the mental and physical fatigue at these meets. Sure each lift only takes a couple of seconds, but when you spread out the lifting over 8 hours, you have to be both physically and mentally tough to make it through.
I also think my more gradual approach to cutting weight helps me maintain my strength leading into a competition. I’m not a big fan of crash dieting since I feel it leaves me too weak. Instead, I give myself several months to lose the weight; that way I can cut down to the 182-184 lbs range without feeling crazy deprived.
One I get down there, I’ll dehydrate myself a little right before the competition in order to make my weight class. It’s funny, in my latest meet, I actually wound up dropping more water than necessary which may have cost me a little on my bench press, but I’d rather be safe than sorry!
Very true. Sticking with the weight and diet theme… it seems that when most people hear the term “power lifter”, they immediately think of a fat guy who happens to also be really strong. But you stay pretty lean year around, how is that?
Overall, I’d attribute my year-round leanness to the volume of conditioning I do and the fact that my diet is much better than the traditional power lifter. Don’t get me wrong, I love to eat (Matt eats ~6000 kcal a day when trying to bulk up, and often finds himself cooking 15-17 lbs of meat at a time), but I don’t see how eating 6000 calories worth of junk is really going to help me.
Instead I stick to a diet with lots of natural meat and fats, it’s just how my body works best. I definitely still eat starchier carbohydrates, but I try to eat them mostly around my workouts. I don’t like to over-think my nutrition. I just stay away from all the crap that most powerlifters seem to live off.
I know this makes me somewhat of an outcast in the powerlifting fraternity, but at the same time, at the last meet I was one of the few lifters sporting a visible 6-pack!
He’s not kidding, I’ve seen pictures.
Even though I love trying to get bigger, I don’t want to get bigger if that also means I get a ton fatter. Over the past couple of years, I’ve built my body weight up from 190 lbs to as high as 215 lbs. At that weight I definitely feel big, not fat mind you, but big.
Another feat of “Shelvockian” strength
(507 lbs deadlift)
For the life of me, I can’t figure out where the mentality that powerlifters need to be big and fat came from. Personally, I don’t want to have a heart attack at 40.
Judging by your results so far, staying leaner hasn’t hurt you one bit.
No, it really hasn’t. If anything, I find that my desire to stay leaner has kept me a lot healthier and improved my performance overall.
People tend to forget that carrying a lot of excess bulk is really tough on the joints. Not only do the joints takes a beating, but your entire system (heart, lungs, internal organs) has to work a ton harder on a day-to-day basis. As far as I’m concerned, the only “bulk” I’m interested in is more high quality muscle mass.
Are the conditioning workouts I put myself through fun? Not really; in fact they can be downright brutal mentally and physically. But seriously pushing yourself to the limit preps you for competition, plus these workout are great for fat loss… and who doesn’t like aesthetic benefits?
Why flip a 400 lbs tire? Because you can!
I also devote a good amount of time to “pre-hab” work, which is essentially just a ton of dynamic stretching and foam rolling. On a training day, I’ll often spend a good 15-20 minutes going through a number of drills BEFORE I even attempt to move any kind of serious weight.
Then in my spare time at home when I’m watching a movie, you can often find me doing some extra foam rolling. I believe that all the stretching and foam rolling I do are a major reason why I’ve been able to avoid any kind of serious injury from lifting.
Well said and great point about all the soft tissue work. It’s pretty uncommon to meet a young guy who appreciates the benefits that come from doing that kind of work.
But I have to ask you this question: how does a music geek get into powerlifting in the first place? It’s not really a typical career progression.
Agreed. My interest in training actually started in my last year of high school. I was kind of one of those nerdy guys, but then one of my close buddies started training and before you knew it, our whole circle of friends kind of fell into training.
Once I moved onto University, I just kept plugging away. Obviously I didn’t know a whole lot back then, but thankfully I met a mentor at Western, Russel McLean, who really turned me onto the need for quality programming and taught me a lot about how to properly apply myself in the gym.
Although Russ was more into bodybuilding, a lot of what he taught me about training had a huge amount of carryover to powerlifting. He’s not one of those bodybuilders who spends all day doing isolation work and going for the “pump”. Rather, he believes that if you are going to be big, you should also be strong and I respect that.
It just happens that I enjoy the challenges of powerlifting more than I do training for bodybuilding. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
Fair enough. Suffice to say, a lot of your learning at Western happened outside the classroom?
Definitely. Ever since I got interested in training, I’ve tried to educate myself as much as possible. One of the books that really got me turned onto powerlifting was the book: Maximum Strength: Get Your Strongest Body in 16 Weeks with the Ultimate Weight-Training Program
But more than the training knowledge I was acquiring, I came to increasingly value the importance of social support. Early on in my time at Western, myself and a couple like-minded individuals got together and formed the “Western Gym Team”.
Go to Western, get huge.
Originally, this was just a small group of us who’d get together to lift and challenge each other. But over time this group has evolved into nearly 300 members! Not only does this group create the opportunity to meet new training partners, it’s also an avenue where those of us who are more experienced can share our knowledge with trainees who are just starting out.
I still am continually amazed at just how powerful this support network can be. For instance, at last check, about 10 of the Western Gym team member have gone to compete in powerlifting and a number of others have done bodybuilding shows. Without the camaraderie and encouragement from the group, I don’t think any of us would have done this on our own.
There are so many days that I don’t feel like pushing myself, but when you’ve got 3 or 4 other buddies next to you telling you how much of a baby you are from backing off of a squat… well, let’s just say you can’t let your manhood be challenged like that. So by being part of this group, we all find ourselves reaching new heights.
Awesome lesson and I’m with you 100% on the importance, and need, for mentorship as well as support in all facets of life.
Yeah, a kind of unofficial motto I have is, “cut out the crap and just get it done”.
A lot of people talk about how they want to do a bodybuilding show, want to compete in power lifting, want to run a marathon, blah, blah, blah, but they never wind up doing it. Well the only way it’s going to happen is if you put your money down, sign up and then tell everyone you know that you are doing it.
Once you’ve put yourself out there like that, there’s no backing down. When you keep your goals private it’s way too easy to just give up because the only person you are disappointing is yourself.
However, when all your friends and family are expecting you to do something, then there’s no way you are going to let yourself fail. It’s incredibly motivating to make your goals public.
For many of us, the gym team provides the kind of accountability we all need to succeed. It sounds corny, but it works.
Couldn’t agree with you more. So what’s next for you?
Well I’m thinking about more school, the sound of a PhD definitely sounds appealing. Haha, there go my geek roots showing through again.
But with respect to training, I’m going to have to spend some time learning how to lift in a suit. I prefer to lift raw, but there just aren’t that many raw powerlifting competitions around and if you aren’t wearing a suit, you probably are sacrificing at least 100 lbs off of each lift.
I figure once I learn the technique of lifting in a suit, I’ll have a realistic shot of setting the Ontario record for biggest squat at the 181 lbs category. Right now, the record sits around 630 lbs. I’m still a ways away but I think it’s entirely doable in a couple years time.
Awesome! Knowing you, I’m sure you get that record in time. Well thanks for taking the time for the interview and best of luck in your future competitions.
So there you have it folks, yet another example of what happens when you combine intense, high-quality training with clean eating.
As I was typing up Matt’s story, I kept thinking back to this quote attributed to Sir Edmund Hillary (the man who first climbed Mt. Everest):
“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”
Remember, there are countless reasons and excuses for why “you can’t” do something; but success comes to those individuals who identify even one reason why “you can”.
Till next time, train hard and eat clean!
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