Strongman Eddie Hall is doing a lot more than bringing the Arnold Classic to the UK in 2021.
As we recently reported, Eddie Hall recently partnered with a global sponsorship company to bring the Arnold Classic to the UK in 2021. But it looks like that’s not all the fabled powerlifter and strongman has been up to recently — last weekend, he shared a video with fans over YouTube revealing never before seen footage of his training leading up to his record-shattering 500 kgs/1102lbs deadlift at the 2016 World Deadlift Championships. You can watch the video in full above.
“One of the things that we have to do as we’re pursuing our dreams and our goals,” begins the video. “Is that we have to know that failure’s not an option.” The video functions at the halfway point between inspiration and documentary, interweaving footage of Eddie Hall’s historic win with information on his training and voiceover encouraging all of us to push ourselves past our limits.
Eddie Hall himself sits down for most of it and gives an extremely candid interview about what led him to take on the challenge of deadlifting such an enormous amount of weight and if he feels it will ever be done again.
“The 500 kilo deadlift is something that’s been talked about for many, many years,” Eddie Hall explains. “I remember reading in strength forums, ‘Are we gonna see a 500 kilo deadlift in our lifetime?'”
“I needed a nice bit of pocket change to become the world’s strongest man. So, I said to [some] promoters, ‘hey, if someone was to come and pull 500 kilo next year, how much would you pay them?’ And they literally looked at me and were like, ‘pffft, how much do you want?'”
The rest, as they say, is history. You can check out footage from the 2016 competition where Eddie Hall accomplished this impossible below.
Eddie Hall also reveals in the video the science that went into his strict fitness regimen.
“I…saw a scientist who specialized in strength, in how to release strength, in how the human body works in recruiting muscle fibers and how you relay that into movements,” Eddie Hall said. “He explained to me that a day-to-day person…they have access to 50% of the muscle fibers, at most. Someone that trains sort of 20-30 hours a week, kind of an elite sports person, that’s 65 to 75% maximum that they could recruit of their muscle fibers. So, someone like myself training 30 hours in the gym, I could access about 75% of my true potential.”
“You have scenarios where families, where people have been trapped under cars, mostly kids, and women — women — have been able to lift a car up off the ground and save their children. That’s been recorded. He explained to me that they can recruit 100% of their muscle fibers through their fight-or-flight scenario, it’s something that can’t be faked…So if someone’s got a gun to your head, saying, ‘Pick up that 200 kilo deadlift if you don’t want me to blow your head off,’ more than likely, you’re gonna do it.”
It’s an interesting psychological trick that Eddie Hall used in his training, but definitely a valuable lesson that we can all learn from. You never know what you can accomplish if you push yourself past your limit!
