Eddie Hall has officially completed being strong.
In 2017, the Beast was rewarded for years of perseverance by winning the title of World’s Strongest Man in Botswana, fending off Brian Shaw and Hafþór Björnsson to claim the crown he had striven for – and promised his nan he would win when he was young.
Not that he needed the validation. We’re talking about somebody who has been the UK’s Strongest Man six times, the Britain’s Strongest Man five times, and England Strongest Man … well, ‘only’ twice, but you get the gist.
It was the culmination of years of pushing the limits of human physicality.
However, in 2020, Hall set his sights on something different. Instead of throwing beer kegs, he wanted to throw punches.
And so began one of the most unique body transformations in sport.
Eddie Hall lost around five stone as he switched from being a strongman to boxing
Nicknamed ‘The Beast’, here he was in the months leading up to his successful World’s Strongest Man title challenge in Botswana
This is a photo from recent weeks, demonstrating his leaner physique after losing a few stone
Long-time rival Bjornsson, himself a former World’s Strongest Man and the man who played ‘the Mountain’ in Game of Thrones, challenged him to a boxing match, and so began the shedding of the pounds.
In 2017, as World’s Strongest Man, he weighed 30st. This was a man eating 12,500 calories per day at some point, including two full English breakfasts.
Hall revealed that he would set 20 alarms each day reminding himself of when to eat, even throughout the night.
Calorie-dense, high-fat foods were the premium in his strongman life as he needed to match his competitors for weight, coming in at a smaller height than them.
He even had a show, Eddie Eats America, where he tried to conquer some of the biggest food challenges fathomable.
Naturally, his lifestyle changed when he turned his priorities to boxing. While he already did cardio exercises, he had to undergo much more high-intensity training to burn calories.
To prepare for the boxing, his workouts included a half-hour swim in a hot tub while attached to an elasticated tether, running around the hot streets with a punching bag over his shoulder, and he shared plenty of videos from the gym.
Hall used to eat up to 12,500 calories per day and had a show called ‘Eddie Eats America’
Coach Lindon Newbon helped him prepare his body for the fight against Hafþór Björnsson
Ahead of his boxing match, one of his training techniques was to swim in a hot tub
He said that he enjoyed the greater variety of training for boxing, as he had been accustomed to continually lifting heavy weights as a strongman.
He said: ‘Being a strongman for the past 11 years, and the last three years all I’ve done is train heavy, heavy weights, you do become a bit robotic, I’ll be honest.
‘I’m having fun. I’m as clueless as anybody about boxing. I’m not an expert or claim to be an expert. So there’s a lot to learn, a lot to progress on.’
By 2020, he had lost five stone in order to take on Bjornsson. Hall decided in 2018 that ”the sun was setting on his life’ as a strongman and he wanted to be healthier.
Sadly the fight couldn’t go ahead when originally planned, so took place in 2022.
Unfortunately for Hall, Bjornsson won the fight by unanimous decision and caused the Englishman to bleed from above both eyes, but both did well to get in a boxing shape after years of being strongmen.
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