Beast of The Beast
Rise of Strongman Eddie Hall
How about the strongest shoulders?
you bet he does!
Are you ready for a 'feast of the beast'?
We're going to take a look back at
the career of strongman Eddie Hall.
Now let's start right at the beginning.
Long before his World's Strongest Man,
long before his 500kg World Record Deadlift
Let's start where it all began for him internationally
That was in 2012 - in Giants Live Melbourne
Im Eddie Hall - the UK's Strongest Man,
and i'm here to win!
I train at a normal gym, im just really
aggressive -  low reps really high weight.
I do a lot of boxing as well to keep fit
i had all the tattoos and that
before I started doing strongman
Get the crowds a bit scared
no i'm not an aggressive person
obviously i just switch on for competitions
i get really angry and
aggressive get psyched up get the crowds going.
you've got to constantly visualize being
up there to
to get you motivated for the training so
i've got a really busy year this year
i'm
really looking forward to i'm getting
married
in june and i've got a baby due in july
yeah i've got a name for the boy it's
maximus
fittingly
i come from a rough town  -  it'd just be great for me to make it and
my son could go to school and say my Dad's World's Strongest Man
that's motivation for
me that's what gives me the fight to win
COMMENTATOR:  it's all come down to this last lift,
this blue barrel could decide who goes through
to the World's Strongest Man contest
Well how do you grip it?
The long arms of Burke have allowed him to get a better grip
Eddie Hall trying to bear hug it
well this is hard
it only weighs 120
kilos but
everything is making it difficult:  the size, the liquid moving around inside.
and eddie hall is blowing like mad
10 seconds to go
the final barrels up
that's it burke's done it
and that's the end of Eddie Hall's chances of getting on the podium
and eddie hall knows it
69.1 secs -  but it is not good enough
absolutely gutted - i really wanted to
beat mike and get third place for that
you tried your best he wasn't going
to do the blue one there but you weren't
giving up
no way was i giving up
first time competing abroad
it's all experience i'll take it on
board and know for next time
So, 4th place finish in his 1st (international) event in 2012 Melbourne
Next up for Eddie was Britain's
Strongest Man.
He was up in the deadlift in the 1st event
against Laurence Shahlaei and Terry Hollands.
take a look, first of all, at what Eddie was doing in deadlift back in 2012
and also what he decided to do after the lift
still a young man as well - he is 24
comes from Stoke-on-Trent…
someone's got to come from there!
Ready to go on the big
400 kilos
let's get behind him
Come on on Eddie
(Laurence Shahlaei) looking to destroy the 400kg, now come on
Laurence Shahlae - easy stuff
straight in there - here he comes Terry Hollands of Dartford
he knows what it's like to win Britain's Strongest Man
so the weight is going up,
the guys are going for 420kg
are you out Eddie, done?
i might as well - i'm not gonna beat them two.
okay
You pulling out chris?
So Eddie hall are stepping down
So Eddie stopping at 400 kg back
in 2012
Allowing Shahlaei and Hollands to go on to break the British record on their own.
that's where he was at that stage of his career  (400kg)
Now i want to move on to the
following season
and a second Giants Live event
That was in Budapest in 2013
and we're starting to understand a
little bit more about his character
this is the Giants Live Budapest
and I'm here to win
first time inBudapest today had a
wonderful time
they took us around Parliament
and we've seen all the crown jewels and everything
it's been really good and
we've had a nice boat ride
i spent a nice day with it with the
other lads it's been really good
this is a starter
sitting behind me is the
building of Parliament of Budapest
We were in there early today having a guided tour
You know me and Colin and the other lads
have been having a good laugh.
taking the mick out the guards
and stuff, so its pretty cool.
Eddie actually finished 2nd in Budapest
but what it was really remembered for was
when Eddie went into the Hungarian parliament
and ran up to the rostrum where usually
Prime ministers and Presidents are only allowed to speak from
and got up to his usual antics!
what is also important to look at
throughout Eddie's 6-year career
is his increase in weight over such a short period
this is what he weighed back in 2012.
currently sitting around - in English - 25.5 stone
American 350 pounds
- so you know it's a really  a lot of weight to carry around
and this heat does not help you know just
just walking up some stairs
i'm literally out of breath
What was also noticeable
in Eddie's early career
was his drive and ambition
it seemed like he knew what he wanted
the last couple years of my life
i met my wife,
i've got married
ive had two children
well i've had one children last two years i've already got a child
I've burst on to the strongman
scene
i've won the England's
won the UKs
Ive been to the Worlds -  i'm really hoping you know
to knuckle down with the help from my family,
from my wife - 
i really want to knuckle down a
and make the World's strongest man
I  want to be 'World's Strongest Man' one day.
so his second place in budapest
qualified him for world's strongest man
in Sanya (china)  in 2013
but a poor stone run in the qualifiers
saw him narrowly miss
out in a place in the final
Now in 2014
this started to see the rapid rise of
Eddie Hall
when he took his first of 5 Brtain's Strongest Man titles
when he was up against Laurence Shahlaei in the last event
The reigning Champion (Shahlaei), 
and the leader, Eddie -  are you going to win this?
dang yeah
Laurence are you going to hold on to the crown - are you still the king?
well see i've um i've been shocked by
eddie today he's really impressed me
we all know he's strong but um be very impressed with his speed as well so
i'll fight until the end i always do   and the best man will win,
May the best man win
let's hear you folks
our contest leader
Well,  Laurence Shahlaei
suggested
that mobility might be the achilles heel for Eddie Hall
can the big man, the double UKs
champion
win this one?
Well he goes off like a scalded cat.
and that's what he needs to do
he is behind in the overall standings, Colin
he's got to be in front of Eddie hall in this one
very quick Shahlaei -  but I tell you what,  Hall is quick too
it's all about grabbing the bag,
now who can manhandle it
well whoever comes out on top here
will be the British champion and hall has
turned the lead around
he has snatched it away from Laurence
Shahlaei so he must beat him here to take the title for a 3rd  consecutive year
and he doesn't -
Eddie hall beats Laurence Shahlaei and
Shahlaei knows what that means
we have a new british champion
he said earlier in the show, he was  waiting for that day
when somebody hands him the trophy
and this is that day
Later in 2014,  Ed came sixth
overall in the finals of World's
Strongest man
to continue his progression
and it was this time we were starting to really find out
what really made this man tick
Growing up as a kid and teenager i was a
National Champion swimmer, believe it or not
you know sort of getting towards Olympic standard,  when i got to
mid-teens and got very bored with the sport
It got very coach-heavy
I was  pushed into the sport and
began to dislike it
and then turned  to  bodybuilding
and my inspiration for that back then was Arnold Schwarzenegger
you know that just that i mean he's
probably inspirational for thousands
millions of people
um but for me that's why i started i got
into the gym just for bodybuilding
reasons
just to look good and
maybe maybe get on the stage and then
i got into the gym and started lifting
humongous weights and then watching
will's strongest man
and believe it or not terry hollands was
sort of on his prime back then when i
was just getting hit in the gym
just seeing a six foot six 30 stone
bloke on tv was just amazing for me so
my inspirations then turned to terry
hollands you know i wanted to be a terry
hollands of england
um started strongman at 19 and i think i
won england's strongest man at 21 so you
know it was just a really quick
progression for me
strongman's getting a lot more exposure
these days and i think it's because of
you know what us guys are doing for the
sport
we're doing a lot more promotion and
you've got great characters like myself
coming through and you know growling at
the cameras and people love to see that
people love to see freaks
i'm quite happy to call myself a freak
because i'm an
entertainer
and i really enjoy that
in 2014 it seemed his biggest gains were coming in the Deadlift
which was definitely a sign of things to come
in an epic battle in the world deadlift championships
in Leeds, Eddie dropped the World Record.
this will extend his own british record
this will tie the greatest lift
in history
eddie hall it's past his knees can he
lock it out
come on eddie it's there you know it's
there
remarkable what are we seeing
well he's dropped it he's dropped it
he was given the down signal but it's in the rules you can't drop
oh my goodness
yeah there's the decision you must lower
it under control
and he's not a happy man i think he got
it all the way up
let's have a look was it an accidental
drop
it just got stuck in his thighs no he
does lock that
out absolutely the hand goes down but it
wasn't under control look at the shock
he realizes instantly what he's done
you know what guys in my eyes that was a
world record
i can do a four six one i don't give a
i don't give a magnus is the stripper's
ref on the planet all battered up
so fair dudes please thank you very much
whilst eddie was magnanimous with
world's strongest man referee
magnus from magnuson he was clearly
disappointed
afterwards that he didn't get the lift
and was consoled
by friend and former strongman rob
frampton
afterwards he said this in the dressing
room
went to do the four six one world record
uh got it up and just in the in the heat
at the moment
on all the excitement and the crowd
cheering and everything just dropped the
weight and
the rep was disallowed but you know in
my eyes it was a good rep
so you know i'm happy to walk away with
knowing i've pulled the weight
from a to b i've got one more contest at
the end of this month
and then i'm pretty got nothing now
until the world's longest one next year
so i'm really gonna get
my head down get six or seven months of
good solid training
um really progress on my weaknesses
um my yoke my farmers you know just
really get my moving events up
and improving more so on my deadlift
just to you know i want to come back
next year and pull even more
eddie's deadlift was looking impressive
but so was his log lift and when he
turned up to the world log lift
challenge in 2015
this happened 220 kilograms
he's done it in training to his
shoulders without a problem and he
presses it overhead
no oh my goodness me came right down on
his head
well luckily he's uh just giving it a
rub
perhaps just passed out for a split
second there
so much pressure holding his breath
it went up to full extension but he was
leaning backwards and luckily had the
presence of mind just to pull his arms
out there and go
forwards and that could have crushed him
eddie fantastic effort you got it up but
the balance point just backwards there
talk us through that one
and you're okay yeah i'm fine uh i just
say a lot of weight
um when i press a log i saw hold my
breath so i just
got to the top just went really fuzzy
and just lost my balance
sort of blacked out for a second well
you still held onto your british record
you're now sharing it with graham hicks
but
great performance you must be pleased
with what you've done so far yeah for
sure
um i don't like sharing records though
so
i'm sure i'll do okay next year now in
february 2015 eddie won his second
britain's strongest man title
but what he really wanted was that
deadlift world record
and in march of that year he traveled to
australia
and in front of his idol arnold
schwarzenegger
he did this
come on
well i used to power lift and my record
was 710 pounds
so i know how much weight this is it is
extraordinary it is uh absolutely i kind
of humanly
so eddie achieved one of his lifelong
dreams in front of his idol by breaking
the deadlift world record
and later in the year in leeds the world
deadlift championships
he aimed to increase it by one kilogram
commentary here from benny magnuson
lauren
he owns the platform that's his weight
that's his record he's a monsters
look at that presence confidence in him
here we go
463 kilos made to look easy
for the beast
standing ovation from casmir himself for
the beast eddie hall
so after achieving the deadlift world
record at 463 in leads
eddie promised that you would try and
increase it to 500 kilograms the year
later
jack and babe will get a million quid
off the company if it did 500.
the works
terry just said to be there he now
believes before i thought it was all
wind 500 kilos he said i know this guy
can do it he's 26
still i was my strongest at 32 he just
said to me for sure he can do it
what do you think about that um i think
the 500 kilo is gonna fall
for 100 and then it's going to be me
that's going to do it
so a year a long time in strongman a
year before he had dropped the deadlift
a year later he had broken the world
record twice
2016 would probably see eddie's most
rapid improvement in his strongman
career
and it started off with an epic stone
run for his three-peat at britain's
strongest man
he can be just stupendous at stones
last year strongest man he was second
behind by saw even beat thor beyonce
and he's looking great here something
just clicked a couple of years ago
and he is magnificent out of that one
motions
1794. are you kidding me
well getting that t-shirt off is
because he really is the ultimate
package now
he could win world strongest man i
believe it
the way you did the fifth stone in one
move i've never seen that before
tell us about it
well obviously having the strongest back
in the world just put that into practice
one motion no problem first place you
almost won every event
that's got to feel great oh yeah for
sure you know i came in today
as serious as ever you know not
complacent i came here to win
and that's exactly what i did nice job
lars
thank you this guy's you know absolutely
awesome i think he is probably the one
british guy right now that
has a legitimate shot of winning world's
strongest man so if i can kind of push
him and make him work a bit harder
that's good
oh that's great you're both awesome
congratulations eddie hall
the beast
where's the strongest man three times
eddie hall
so eddie continued his domestic
dominance in 2016
but it was more all this talk of the 500
kilo deadlift that he would do later in
the year
that got everyone listening 500 kilo
deadlift what do you
yeah you know everyone keep asking me
the question about who's when you're
gonna pull the big 500
um i genuinely think i can you know in
my lifetime so
i've just got to keep getting getting
stronger and stronger i'm training hard
on my
really working that hard on my deadlift
i see it as like
it's very exciting for me to train
because he's got that that sort of
rivalry rivalry between me and benny
um you know so it's just i just want to
prove everybody wrong that's what's
making me train harder you know i got
shot down at the europes when i drop
that bar i want to come back and do it
with my eyes you know
eyes closed i'll do that with my dick
out and do it no problem hopefully you
dropped the ball i thought you couldn't
hold it
so you could hold it i think you weren't
strong enough
so the half-ton deadlift was on the
cards now what i want to focus on now
is eddie's body weight remember back in
2013
he said he was 25 and a half stone which
is 350 pounds
three years later he would have to go to
full beast mode
people don't appreciate how hard it is
to be heavy like and it's not a lot
it's a life choice of course but to walk
around and
put your shoes on to climb the stairs
it's just
people don't people don't realize how
hard it is to polish perfection you're
looking forward to losing the weight
hi i'm mate i am i realize i've put on
since last since the world the europe's
last year put on 15 kilo
and i'll probably put on another four or
five kilo
it's a 20 kilo from last year that's you
know
29 stone at the minute yeah and it's
hard man
can you close the door for me hey you
closed the door for me i can't reach it
hang on one second
oh my goodness funny man strong
journey back
so in three years he put on four stone
which is over 50 pounds in body weight
now leading into the world deadlift
championships in 2016
a lot of people were questioning whether
or not this 500 kilo deadlift
was possible if you're going to pull 500
kilograms you would have to pull
at least
450 for five reps at least
and no one i i haven't seen no one close
yet
you don't believe that you can do it
like i said there's a reason why they
are jumping for
from 465
straight to 500 there's a reason why
they want to jump from there
because pulling a lot of
heavy weights i can get you know 400 is
a heavy weight
then going from there to 420 come from
that to 440
and there from 465 and then straight to
500
that's crazy and even if there
would be allowed to pull something
between
look at those weights it's uh you know
the world
record right now is 464 kilograms
three three sorry and
and uh you know it's it's it's
37 kilograms more
that's a lot of increase if you had to
put money on it
danny or eddie one of them was to do it
i know ben did mention more than at the
hall
we've trained together i've i've
i know how his body is i haven't seen
how how
um how it's been training or
or how how more he can pull from
training
than in a com competition
i know that benny can surprise people i
know that he's a lot stronger in a
competition
he pulls something out at the gym and he
can pull 50 kilos more in a competition
i've seen it seen him do it before and
i know if ben is well rested and ready
anything can happen so i'm going to put
my money on benedict madison
to be fair to half though bjornsson he
wasn't the only person that was
questioning whether or not a 500
kilogram deadlift was possible
most people didn't think it was going to
be possible now before a deadlift
strong miner have certain traits and
superstitions that they go through
in order to concentrate for the lift
this is what eddie goes through
i've got a few superstitions one of the
crew members who every year gives me a
bit of a back rub
before i do a lift and that just seems
to give me the magic touch so
um i'll be definitely asking that same
crew member to give me a little rub for
the good luck rituals for me for for for
a big left like today
um it's not just today you know it's a
whole week of rituals you know you've
got to
do your physio your stretching your hot
coal treatments you've got to eat
properly drink properly sleep properly
the whole week's a big ritual obviously
getting those wraps on certain way
getting the suit on a certain way
there's so many different things
probably a thousand
thousand things walking up to a bar if
you get one wrong it could really put
you off
walking up to a bar you know you've got
to think about really dark
deep horrible thoughts get angry think
about nothing else but but being
positive about that lift
it's very important to be focused on it
on a big lift
like a deadlift it could be said that
the rise of popularity in strongman and
british sport
was correlated to the rise of eddie hall
and in 2016 the giants live went to the
leeds first direct arena for the first
time
and in front of a huge crowd eddie tried
to prove the naysayers wrong
arnold schwarzenegger was the best one
to say you know ignore the naysayers
but why listen to those people use it as
fire if they say you can't do it then
you go out and do it
that's what arnold's thrived on you know
that's what arnold's success was built
on
proving that they say is wrong and this
is what my success is going to be built
on as well
come on
do this
prepares
500 kilograms is
no longer a myth 500 kilograms
was crushed in leaves
owns the world
the greatest
so what many thought was impossible
became possible
one of the greatest feats of strength in
history
but this also took its toll on eddie
uh it's usually quite good right about
140.
at the moment yeah i've got yeah i don't
need to give you some aspirin or
something
so strong man was starting to take its
toll out on eddie in 2016
after four years of international
competition he already achieved one of
his dreams the deadlift world record
but he still had one big dream in mind
now i've achieved the 500 kilo deadlift
i am 100 i've got my sights on winning
the world's strongest man
you know i set myself a couple of goals
when i sat out in strongman
to hold the world record and the
deadlift was one of them to win the
world's strongest man was another
um i've achieved one so i've got one
more to go and i
i've said it many times before i will
die trying
if you don't see me on that number one
spot if i'm not there i'll have died
trying or a doctor told me to stop
most people in this world just choose to
breathe in and out
in
i choose to be great unless somebody
tells me to stop or i actually die
i i will be will strongest man
strongman is an all year round sport
literally 51 weeks of the year i am
training for the strongest man
um and as long as you do that
you are mentally prepared that's the
only way i can describe it
if you know that you've trained your
hardest
if you're lifting big weights in the gym
if you're lifting more weights than
what they were doing at will strongest
one last year easily and also that's
going to give me a massive mindset to
come in and say yes i can win this
so it's all about the training basically
whatever you do in training you can take
it to a comp
has confidence
i'm just hoping one day it pays off just
for that one special moment where i'm
handed a trophy
and hopefully all my problems will go
away
