Melrose Powerlifter Meghan Scanlon Sets 2 World Records

MELROSE, MA — Meghan Scanlon was a soccer star at Melrose High School and played in college at George Washington and Merrimack. She was a runner early in her adult life who raced in marathons, before adding biking and swimming for triathlons. She was far from the biggest competitor in any athletic arena, but her spirit has carried her to places she admits she was not sure her body could handle.

This past week, the 5-foot-2-inch Scanlon — competing at 125 pounds — carried more weight on it than any competitor her size in International Powerlifting Federation history as she set world records in both the squat and bench press in her 57-kilogram weight class at the IPC World Classic Powerlifting Championships in Helsingborg, Sweden. Scanlon set the world squat record at 178 kilograms and the world bench press record at 115.5 kilograms, on her way to a second-place overall finish in the competition.

"It's a crazy thing that I can throw 400 pounds on my back and lift that now," said the 31-year-old. "A couple of years ago if someone had told me to do 200, 300 pounds I would have said that I could never do that. But now that much doesn’t even feel like weight to me. It’s all relative. I feel how this has affected me is now I feel I can do more than I thought I was capable of in all things in life."

She said it was in 2016 when she decided to add powerlifting to her extensive list of athletic credentials. An injury forced her to curtail her distance running but she could still bench and squat, so she continued to train for lifting competitions that she began to take more and more seriously. Two years ago, she said she turned her focus fully to lifting.

"When you are running marathons you are never fully recovered," she said. "It was the fatigue of it all. I was getting stronger. But when I stopped training for running, I saw very fast progress."

That progress sped up through last year when she competed in the Arnold Sports Festival and found she could hold her own against some of the best competition. It was then that she said she decided to set her sights on becoming the very best in the world.

"I re-evaluated what I wanted out of the sport and was determined to go all in, try to win a national championship and compete at Worlds," said Scanlon, who coaches a powerlifting team at Northeastern University and works as a personal trainer in Brookline, while using sponsorships to help defray the expense of her travel for events. "It's been a cool thing that I've been able to cash in on it. But it wasn’t easy. It took a whole year of planning from lifting, to nutrition, to developing a sleep schedule, to fitting it in with my work, to maintaining some type of a social life. Everything was very planned out, so it is cool that it worked out in my favor because I put so much into it."

Her world records are not bad for someone who was always told she was too small to compete in other sports at the highest level.

"My size held me back in sports when I was younger," she said. "The cool thing with powerlifting is that I am not the biggest person so I can compete against people in the right category for me. It’s funny because when my husband tells people that his wife is a powerlifter, they always ask: 'Is she that big?' And he says: 'No, not really.'"

Yet, that hasn't stopped Scanlon from having big dreams. She said now that she has built up the muscle to set records at 57 kilograms she plans to move up to her more natural 63-kilogram weight class (138 pounds) for next season.

"I feel now that I am strong enough to compete at 63k and really see what I’ve got," she said. "I'm going to have to have a day, but I think I am at the point where I can be competitive."

It's not necessarily where the 2006 Melrose High graduate said she envisioned herself being 13 years out of high school, but it's a place where she has been able to discover the best version of herself.

"It's one of those things where you always hope to find something you will be able to compete in for your adult life," she said. "For some people that's a work thing where you are competing to be the best salesman, or what have you. I am so lucky that I have found something that can bring so much new into my life."