While Schuller may not use a telephone booth to transform into a flying superhero, his strength is not to be taken lightly — the 165-pound Saginaw freshman can squat 500 pounds.

Schuller is president of CMU’s Powerlifting team, which officially became a registered student organization at the end of March. He began forming the team, which has four official members, in January.

Schuller has been powerlifting since his freshman year of high school and qualified for states all four years, earning first place for his weight class — at that time, 148 pounds — senior year. He said he wanted to continue his passion at CMU.

“After having such a good experience in high school, I wanted to continue it in college,” he said. “I thought the best way to do that was to start our own RSO.”

Schuller’s high school friend and current roommate, Chris Sowatsky, also is a member of CMU’s powerlifting team and has been involved with the sport for a year.

He said he is the perfect example that anyone can do powerlifting. Before Schuller got him involved, Sowatsky said he was only benching around 90 pounds.

Now Sowatsky’s personal best is 220 pounds, a respectable number in his 198-pound weight class.

“I never lifted at all before I started powerlifting,” the fellow Saginaw freshman said. “When you start out, you don’t feel so confident but, if you stick with it, you can really get into some higher weights. If anyone wants to start lifting, it’s definitely possible.”

Building the team

There are three events in powerlifting: a dead lift, benching and squatting.

Last weekend, Schuller traveled to Orlando, Fla. to represent CMU at a national powerlifting competition. He was the only member of the team to qualify to compete.

Overall, Schuller took 12th out of 25 competitors in his weight class (now 165 pounds) by lifting 1,245 pounds combined in three events.

“It’s a nerve-wracking experience. There’s so many things going through your mind,” Schuller said. “When you finally get a personal record, it’s an amazing feeling to know you’re hard work is paying off. It’s such an adrenaline rush.”

Schuller and Sowatsky agree the hardest and yet most crucial element of powerlifting is consistent training. The team practices six days a week — two days of squat training, two days on bench, one day on dead lift and maxing out in all three categories on Saturday.

The teammates both agree seeing improvement makes it all worthwhile.

“I really love the fact that I can see my progress going on — it’s really cool to see myself improve,” Sowatsky said. “The first time I had a total weight of lifting a thousand pounds, it was really cool.”

Because of a late approval to become an RSO, nationals was the only event the team was able to officially represent CMU in.

Schuller, however, said he has big plans for the team next year and hopes to have them compete in at least four events this summer.

“My main goal is, by senior year, to have a full team (of 10 people) go to nationals to compete for the national championship as a team,” Schuller said. “Powerlifting really brings people together.”