4 minute read
I'M ONLY HUMAN
Don’t judge a book by its cover… strongman Eddie Hall in conversation with Mark Hudson.
Everything I had ever read or heard about Eddie Hall worried me. Regularly portrayed as a self-absorbed, coarse, aggressive, angry man. Six feet three inches tall, weighing thirty stone and physically intimidating, a beast! It’s safe to say that meeting him for the first time generated a certain amount of anxiety. A perfect lesson in not judging a book by its cover.
Eddie Hall is charming. A strong, physically powerful, focused, self-assured man but with an incredible honesty that makes him very easy to like.
Born Edward Stephen Hall on 15 January 1988 weighing eight pounds and fourteen ounces in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire. Working class and proud of it. “I was definitely a handful, I think. I wasn’t big on sharing. I’m not that keen today if truth be told.”
“I was always into sport, I loved swimming and I was good at it. Hard to believe now, but I was fast.” So fast in fact that Eddie became a National Championship Swimmer between the ages of eleven and thirteen. He showed such potential he was invited to join the Olympic Youth Squad. “In true Eddie style, I messed up big. I was smoking in a dorm and set the smoke alarms off and got thrown off the team.”
This was a difficult time for Eddie who no longer had an obvious outlet for his energy. “It was about then I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. I used to shut down emotionally.
To make matters worse, at the same time I got expelled from high school. I was fifteen and lost. I really didn’t know what to do with my time or my life. Where I lived, no one ever talked about depression or understood what I was going through. The only advice I ever got was ‘get a job, that’ll sort you out’. It didn’t. I felt as though everything was closing in on me. I didn’t want to leave the house, I didn’t even want to leave my room. That’s why my mum and dad sent me to a local gym, it was the only way to make me leave the house. Not only did my mood change, I very quickly started to feel in control of my anxiety and depression. For the first time, for a very long time, I felt that I was in the driving seat and I’d found something that I really liked doing. I’d got a purpose, a reason to get out of bed.”
Choose a job you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life? “So true. By the time I was seventeen not only had I discovered that I was good at weight lifting but I knew that if I worked hard, I could turn my hobby into a career. I was working as a roofer by day and doing twenty hours in the gym alongside. At nineteen I entered my first competition in Blackburn, I came fifth, I was gutted, but at least I was doing something I loved. I had rediscovered my self-worth. I really believe in that moment I knew that I wanted to become the World’s Strongest Man.”
Over his burger and chips with a side order of chicken wings, Eddie confides that it’s the goal that is the ‘thing’.
“Working towards something, a challenge, something that I haven’t achieved before, that’s what drives me. It is the goal that makes me want to work as hard as I do and allows me to put myself and my body under such pressure.”
While listening to Eddie, I can absolutely see in his eyes this single-minded passion. A self-belief and work ethic that has seen him win and win big. English Strongest
Man at 21, United Kingdom Strongest Man at 23 and the ultimate prize, the World’s Strongest Man at 29, something else that he isn’t keen to share!
“It’s been hard work. To win, I train endlessly. To maintain my strength and my power I eat constantly, between seven and eight thousand calories a day. Full English breakfast, lunch with pudding, another lunch at mid-afternoon, an evening meal and then loads of protein snacks. This 30 stone body takes some feeding.”
Noticing my shock and concern, Eddie assures me that he is constantly monitored, checked by doctors and blood nutritionists. “I keep it all in check of course I do, but my size has become part of who I am. I look after myself, I have to. I have sleep apnea and wear a breathing mask in bed. On the whole life is good. I always have so
much going on and I love that. I work hard in the gym each day and I travel all over the world commentating on competitions. Talking to groups of weight lifters and meeting the fans. Travelling has its problems - seats in cars, trains or aeroplanes are never big enough. I’m currently touring the UK with my own theatre tour. Eddie Hall, Worlds Strongest Man!
“I love telling people my story, the highs and the lows! I only hope that I can help and inspire people who like me have struggled with anxiety and depression. I absolutely believe that with some work and with life changes, it really does get better! So many young people tell me that they feel as though they have been written off, that was me, that was exactly how I felt. Look at me now!”
