After winning the World’s Strongest Man this summer, Eddie Hall’s life was a whirlwind of interviews and accolades. During one such interview with the United Kingdom’s Express newspaper, he was asked about his future ambitions now that he had won the most coveted title in strongman. He told journalist Rod Gilmour,
It has crossed my mind to enter weightlifting and win a medal for my country. No one that can put over 200kg over their head… I can do it without any technique. So I could maybe test the waters. (…)
I’m sure my backers would stand their ground and back me all the way. Not only to support the world’s strongest man, but an Olympian.
Five months later, is he still interested? Well, Hall is currently in the midst of a book tour to promote his new autobiography Strongman — in fact, he recently broke the partial deadlift world record at the book’s release.
He was asked about those weightlifting aspirations in an interview on The Maleström, and he seems to have cooled on the idea.
Potentially yes, but it would be like starting over again. I mean Olympic Weightlifting, I have tried it in the past and it is a tough sport, it’s not all about strength, it’s about mobility and flexibility, you’ve got to be able to get under the weights, get your elbows nice and tight and it’s a tough sport.
So I’m probably not going to go down that route for the simple fact it’d be starting all over again.
This is a pretty intelligent perspective. We’re not saying strongman and weightlifting can never mix — in fact, some strongman movements can really improve weightlifting performance — but it’s true that being a world champion strongman doesn’t mean you can move straight on to competing in the Olympics as a weightlifter.
Even though Hall is unquestionably one of the strongest human beings on Earth, and that includes with regards to overhead strength and stability, there are a lot of aspects of weightlifting performance that require a considerable amount of time dedicated to being coached in the sport.
[However, there’s a decent amount of crossover between strongman and powerlifting — here are some great tips for transitioning between the two.]
There was one more tidbit from the interview we found interesting: his history-making 500-kilogram deadlift caused him to go blind for a few days.
The 500 kilo was one of the most dangerous things I’ve ever done, it had horrendous repercussions on my health, I lost my vision for a few days afterwards, I had concussion, I was bleeding out my eyes, my ears, my nose – it was horrific.
Maybe that’s one lift we won’t try at home.
Featured image via @eddie_hall_strong on Instagram.