Eddie Hall on dropping 40 kilograms to fight 'The Mountain' from Game of Thrones
The former World's Strongest Man Eddie Hall has turned his attention to boxing. He's drinking 10 litres of water a day, spending £240 a week on physiotherapy and training 365 days a year… Rhys Thomas There are strong people – the squatting three figures, walking like a brick-shithouse type of strong people – and there are the 200 chin-ups type of strong people. But in a more extreme world, you'll find those who refer to themselves as 'strongmen'. It's not without reason – these people are pulling planes and lifting boulders. They're built differently; they eat and train unlike any other athlete.
That was Eddie Hall, age 33, from Newcastle-under-Lyme. That's where you'll know him from – the world where he weighed in at nearly 200 kilograms and housed entire cheesecakes to hit his daily intake of 12,000 kilocalories. In 2017, he won the World's Strongest Man competition in Botswana, taking on that coveted title. He once held the world record for in-competition deadlifts – a knee-shattering 500 kilograms, about the same as a Highland cow. Mental. Things have changed since then. Nowadays, Hall is preparing for his first competitive boxing match. He's lean (156 kilograms) and skipping. Though given his opponent is Hafthor Björnsson (best known for playing "The Mountain" in Game of Thrones), it's still being dubbed the 'heaviest boxing match in history'. Quite the shift. It's brought him discipline like never before. He's eating organic, drinking "the best water in the world" and sleeping in oxygen chambers. But don't take it from us. Here's Eddie himself.
The routine
"I get up at 7:30, take some multivitamins, drink a protein shake and run 1.5 miles wearing a 15-kilo vest. It takes me around 12 to 13 minutes, which is pretty fucking good given my size. Then I'll come back and have breakfast: 250 grams of salmon with sourdough bread or lean minced beef with peppers, onions and mushrooms. Either way, there are Rice Krispies on the side – a good balance of protein and carbs.
"Then it's up to two hours of weight training. I take pre-workout beforehand and a protein shake halfway through the session. Lunch is about a kilo of food. Then I sleep in my hyperbaric chamber [a form of therapy that allows blood to carry more oxygen, generally in order to repair tissue] in the basement for an hour and a half. When l get out, I'll have my second lunch – flapjacks, fruit – basically a carb load ready for the next training session which is usually swimming. I've always swum at least twice a week. I think that's why my joints and cardio are surprisingly good – I was in the GB team as a kid.
"Then I do a boxing session which lasts just over an hour. I don't want to give detail on the boxing training – that's going to be a rude awakening for the prick I'm up against. Just know that at the end of my boxing training session, I'll get in the ring and do six to 10 rounds of sparring with a good boxer.
"After that, it's recovery time. An hour's physiotherapy, stretching in the hydrotherapy pool in my garden, a sauna and an ice bath. Then it's the evening meal: chicken or steak, rice and vegetables, with Greek yoghurt for dessert. If I'm hungry between then and bed I'll have a protein shake. That's the daily regime. Seven days a week, 365 days a year. No days off."
Keeping hydrated
"So, a bit pedantic, but I've got the best drinking system in the world in my house. Here's the setup: a filtration system that takes every single element out of the water, another filtration system that puts back the optimum minerals and vitamins that I need back in, and then an electrical rod system which puts the pH of the water at 9.5, the perfect pH to create an alkaline environment. It kills bacteria, gets rid of cancer [Editor's note: this is an unproven theory], all those kinds of things. You wouldn't run a Ferrari on shit oil and this is no different. I have 10 litres of water a day.
"I used to drink litres and litres of cranberry juice when I was strongman training because I was doing four or five hours of training a day while consuming 12,000 calories. Basically, my body was full of shit: lactic acid and things like entire cheesecakes that I used to eat to get the calorie intake I needed. Cranberry juice helped to shift all that. It's packed with antioxidants, vitamin C and good calories. It helped me recover better and quicker. I don't really need that anymore but I think it's great advice for anyone out there putting their body through the works."
Recovery
"Elite sports is at least 50% recovery. When I was training for the World's Strongest Man, we all trained just as hard but for damn fucking sure I recovered harder than everybody else. I put all my savings, my resources, into recovery.
"I've been using hyperbaric chambers for a while. Back in 2016, I actually made my own chamber in the house with a bit of help from an engineer. I bought 10 oxygen machines, put them in a room made with steel and sealed it with perspex and silicone. It was a bit dangerous. The valves weren't medical grade so I could have inhaled rust which would've killed me. Also, it's a chamber full of oxygen – very flammable. A professor asked me if I'd 'earthed' the chamber. I hadn't, and he explained that if I had, for instance, rubbed some cloth on the steel and it sparked, I could have literally blown up half the fucking street. I've done stupid things in the past. I'm a lot better off financially now so I swapped it out for a professionally made chamber from Germany – much safer. I built it because professionals have told me hyperbaric chambers are one of the best things you can do for recovery. I use it every day.
"I have a sauna and an ice bath, and I spend £240 a week on physiotherapy. There's also hot and cold treatments, shockwave treatments, red light therapy… It's a lot of money but it's essential. Back when I didn't have the money to afford a sauna and an ice bath, I was using a secondhand plug-in sauna from eBay and a horse trough which I'd fill with water. You can get an ice bath sort of feel with water below 10 degrees. So recovery can be done on a budget."
The new diet
"In the strongman times, I was doing 12,000 calories a day and to be honest with you, it was shit. It was good food surrounded by crap food to get the extra calories in. Lunch, for instance: steak or chicken, with rice or pasta and vegetables – very good and wholesome. But I'd also eat half a family cheesecake for dessert to get the calories in.
"Now, I have those wholesome meals without the shit – things like smoked salmon for breakfast instead of a full English. And it's all organic. I don't put anything that's not organic in my body anymore. Lunch might be 250 grams of chicken with rice which I cook in chicken bone broth to get all the collagen and minerals, and some organic vegetables on the side. Dessert is an organic orange. And we're probably talking half the calorie intake, around 6,000 a day. I easily have five protein shakes a day too.
"At my peak, I was 196 kilograms. Now I'm around 156 kilograms. I've dropped nearly 100 pounds of body weight so I need way less food to keep the muscle mass. I'm a more efficient engine. I feel fucking fantastic."
Relaxation
"Relaxation is something I'm more appreciative of these days. I was properly obsessed with strongman training, and I've learned that isn't healthy. A big deal now is switching off. I have one day when I relax each week, usually a Wednesday like today. I'll do the business and admin, then I'll play video games all day and we'll maybe go out for a meal as a family. Ultimately, I'm human. I have to sit down and take a shit like everybody else."
Former World's Strongest Man (2017) Eddie Hall is a Myprotein and MyPRO athlete. Shop the limited-edition MyPRO x Eddie Hall collection here.
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