For this week’s installment of our summer series, we spoke with Max Georgiadis, a senior at Washington High School.

Max is a powerlifter at WHS and loves to workout and lift whenever he gets the opportunity.

Our conversation with Max is below. For those interested in featuring your student in the spotlight, please send a picture of the student with a short description stating why they should be featured to purcellregister@gmail.com.

Q: What is one of your favorite memories from powerlifting in high school?

A: “Just being there with my friends. Honestly, that’s my favorite part of doing it. Just hanging out and competing with them. If I didn’t have any of my friends there, I probably wouldn’t have done the sport.”

Q: Are there any strange superstitions that you believe in as an athlete?

A: “No…  I mean before sets I normally like to wipe off the bar with my shirt just to make sure that my hands don’t slip. Like before doing bench, I will go behind and wipe it with my shirt. I’m a heavyweight, we’re all big boys and we sweat, so I just like to wipe it off to make sure I get a better grip.”

Q: A lot of people are inspired by another athlete and may kind of structure their game around how that person plays or performs. Do you model your game around any athlete, past or present? If not, whose lifts are comparable to yours and your approach in the weight room?

A: “I like watching a lot of those [YouTube] guys, and they’re cool. But I’m going to be honest, my dad is really the only guy I look up to. Like I try to compete with him in his prime. I still haven’t gotten up to what his squat was because he was just a really strong guy, but I want to track [my progress] compared to what his levels were in his day.”

Q: How do you set yourself apart from other student-athletes? What makes your game special or different?

A: “I think one of the basic things is I don’t really listen to anyone else – I kind of just go off and do my own thing. It’s kind of why I don’t do any team sports; I’d rather just do my own thing… I know my strengths, I know my weaknesses, and I want to focus on them. And, [Coach Feuerborn] has to focus on every power-lifter. I just want to focus on myself.”

Q: When you have a bad meet or lift, what do you do to take your mind off things or reset from that? Do you have any hobbies that you lean on besides lifting?

A: “After a hard day, say I didn’t do well or didn’t place first, what I like to do afterward is just go out with friends and maybe get Chick-fil-a or go get some sort of food is normally my go-to.”

Q: Obviously, a lot of students look forward to the summer to get away from school. Do you have any plans or are you doing anything this summer? If so, what are they?

A: “Lots of lifting, basically. I’ve just been lifting this entire summer… We also went on a cruise a few months back, but that’s about it.”

Q: You still have to be ready when your season comes around. What do your lifts look like this summer, are they any different than what you do in-season?

A: “Right now, I would say it’s pretty smooth sailing. I still put a lot of work into it, but it’s not like we’re going as hard. We’ll take breaks every once in a while. Say we have an arm day where we work our triceps and biceps. If something’s happening or we just want to hang out with our friends, we’ll do that instead. Whereas in powerlifting, we’re just constantly working out and trying to get better.”

Q: Do you see yourself pursuing your sport out of high school? If not, what are your plans for the future?

A: “I don’t know about powerlifting in college. If I get a good offer, yeah, I will do it. But I will try to keep on powerlifting after high school, like going to different gyms and finding different meets… I would enjoy going into firefighting and being a firefighter-paramedic. That’s what I would really like to do.”

Q: What advice would you give to your younger self?

A: “Just start eating more. Going into high school, I got real skinny and I was afraid to gain weight. Eventually, I just got out of that fear. And honestly, I would say that it is way better because I was just afraid to eat, thinking I’d be getting bigger and larger. But I’m not afraid of that anymore.”

Q: What is one of the biggest challenges you face as a high school student-athlete?

A: “Because I work on my own and go to my own gym, I’m always working out late. Like by the time I get home, it’s around seven or nine and I’m tired. But then I have to do my homework which leads to me staying up later. Then the next morning, I’m just tired and I don’t really feel like going to school. That would probably be one of them.”

Q: When you step into the weight room, what’s your biggest motivating factor? What’s your why?

A: “I guess just to better myself. To be stronger, gain weight, and be bigger. That’s probably my motivation.”