Interview with The World’s Strongest Man, Eddie Hall aka The Beast!

Eddie Hall, aka “The Beast”, is the strongest human being on the face of the Earth. Even before winning the title of World's Strongest Man in 2017, he had made a variety of historic first victories in the world of strength sports including the heaviest long bar strongman deadlift (1025 lbs) and the heaviest axle press (476 lbs). He’s the first person to win Britain’s Strongest Man four consecutive times, and of course, he’s the first and only person to have ever deadlift 1102 lbs before! Arnold fans may remember Eddie from the documentary “Born Strong” showing on Netflix that followed him and three other competitors at The Arnold Classic competing for the Strongman title!

TAFs sat down with The Beast at this year's Arnold Sports Festival and got some juicy details about his personal encounters with Arnold, his crazy meal workout and routine, and what inspired him to get the ‘beast’ of a Terminator tattoo on his arm! Read on to find out more!

TheArnoldFans.com: When did Arnold first come into your Peripheral and how did that effect you?

Eddie: Mr. Schwarzenegger first came into my head when I was five years old, and one of my very earliest memories is watching the Terminator and watching Mr. Schwarzenegger walk into a bar, butt naked, kick the asses of 20 odd boys and walk out with a new leather jacket and a new motor cycle! And that scene imprinted on me for the rest of my life, because I’ll never forget that body, and I’ll never forget the reaction from my family in the room. You know? My mom was gawking, my dad was like draw dropped. And that really did it for me. I mean a guy who could impress my mom and dad like that, I just wanted to be Arnold Schwarzenegger age 5. I remember walking around school the next day started stomping around pretending to be the terminator and that people put me punch me in the face, that kind of thing. So he had a massive imprint on my life.

TAFs: Nice, were you doing the Arnold prescience the whole time when you were doing that? Maybe do the best Arnold impression you can do.  

Eddie: So there was a bit where I did a dead lift in front of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Australia, and Arnold went (in Arnolds voice) “Eddie you monster! That was incredible, oh my god! You gotta add at least 10 pounds on there and it’ll be amazing!” (Eddie laughs) Thats probably my best impression.

TAFs: Every time Arnold’s around, theres just this sort of vibe, and energy that’s inexplicable. Do you still feel that every time you meet Arnold?

Eddie: I think being around Arnold it’s very surreal for a lot of people, I think he’s got his little circle of friends and people that obviously he trusts. And they’re used to him. I think they take great humor watching grown men “fan girl” around Arnold, or go week at the knees, literally people cry meeting Arnold for the first time. And I find that he can be pretty intimidating meeting a guy who’s achieved so much in his life, you know someone I want to be. It’s tough to be normal around Arnold. I try my best to sort of treat him as I would any other person, you know as a friend, as another human being. How are you? Hows life? How’s your day been? That sort of thing. Just asking him normal questions. You know when I walked around with Arnold I asked him “How’s it feel to be this famous Arnold?” And he tells me it’s it’s beyond anything.

 

TAFs: What’s the best advice Arnold’s has ever given you?

Eddie: So funny enough, I spoke to Arnold today, and asked him about the transition of going from an athlete to an actor, which is what I’m trying to do right now. And the best advice he gave me is, you know, I won the worlds strongest man, and I did that through sheer determination and obsession. And basically he said you gotta move all that obsession and dedication into your next project, into your next goal. Which it seems like an easy thing to say, but it isn’t. You know you don’t really compete the same as an actor. But basically whatever goal you set for yourself, you gotta take all the energy out of one goal, and put it into the next one. And you will be successful at anything in life. And that’s the best advice Arnold’s ever given me.

TAFs: What is your cheat meal that you have?

Eddie: When I was a strong man every meal was a cheat meal. But now I’m slimmed down. Iv lost 85 pounds I believe now. I’m currently 360 pounds. A cheat meal for me now would be a big curry, a nice hot and spicy curry and a full family cheesecake. That would be a cheat meal for me.

TAFs: That’s awesome, what were your regular meals like when your were training to be a strongman?

Eddie: So when I was a full-time strong man I would literally eat 24/7. There was no oh no such thing as a downtime with eating. You know, as soon as I wake up my hand would be full, weather it be a protein shake or food. My routine would require me to get up at 2 o’clock in the morning, eat raw steak, get up at 7am and have a full English breakfast. Go back to bed, get back up at 9am and have a big bowl of porridge, five or six pieces of fruit, some beef jerky. Go back to bed. Get back up at 11am, and grab 200 grams of cashew nuts, and do physical therapy until lunch. I’d have streak, chicken, pasta, rice, vegetables for lunch and have half a family cheesecake or pudding. And then go back to bed. Then about 3pm I’d have a tuna sandwiches, flapjacks, go to the gym and train. During training I would have chunks of raw steak with beef jerky, milk and another protein shake. After the training would be a liter of coconut water and beef jerky. Go to a health spa, stretch, have hot cold treatments. Go back home 10pm, have another big meal, steak, chicken, rice, curry, then the other half of the family cheesecake. Then do an hour and a half of hyperbaric treatment then grab a couple of protein bars, another protein shake and it was off to bed. And that was my life Monday through Sunday. 365 days a years. There were no days off. So I was having 1200-1250 calories a day, every single day. So everyday was a cheat day.

TAFs: That’s crazy! Would you say the amount of sleep you got was 4-6 hours of sleep every night?

Eddie: No, I mean when you add it all up, because what I would get up to eat and go back to bed, Bear in mind I was training full time. It was my full time profession to be a strong man, I would say it was more like 10 to 13 hours of sleeping. You gotta think of yourselves, when you’re putting muscle on, you gotta think of you’ll as kind of a baby. You’re growing all the time. And best was to grow is fuel and sleep, so that’s what I did.

TAFs: Nice! I know currently you’re working on a documentary and you’re
transitioning over from bodybuilding or the worlds strongest man to the movies, are there any projects you’re working on besides the documentary?

Eddie: Yeah, I cant give away too much, but Iv landed my very own TV show in the UK. Basically it’s very simple, it’s a travel show kinda like man vs food sort of theme. Iv landed a very big TV show in the USA as well for the history channel. But that’s all I can say other than it’ll be out later this year. And the heads of the channel recognize it could be their biggest hit, putting all their marketing into it. Iv got a movie later this year, a horror movie in England. Iv got this big documentary to do with Arnie himself. It’s all gone nuts. I mean we’re in March now, and I am fully booked until August. Every single day I’ve got 15 hour days. So it’s pretty busy.

TAFs: We look forward to your Documentary, Do you know if it’ll be going Netflix streaming or in theaters?

Eddie: well first off we are aiming for the pinnacle, we want the biggest release possible, we wanna see it in theaters. But yes Netflix down the line is always the most accessible and obvious option to go for. But what we want to make sure it gets out to the masses. If it’s just on Netflix it’s usually the hard core fans looking it up, you know an Arnold fan, and Eddie fan or strongman fan. But we want it for the masses, we don’t just want hardcore fans. We want this to be a global sensation.

TAFs: There is some visual proof that you are a huge Arnold fan, that beast of a tattoo right there of an Endoskeleton is fantastic! When did you get it? Is it a newer tattoo and what inspired you to get it?

Eddie: So when I was 18 I had this tribal tattoo done all over my arms and neck and I always wanted to cover them up since about the age of 21. And this is the gods honest truth, that I have been so obsessed with strong man that the thought of having a tattoo would hinder my training. So I never got any extra tattoos. So when I won the Worlds Strongest Man I thought what the hell, there’s no excuse now, so I went to a tattoo shop, I think in total Iv had 100 hours of work done. The first one was the trophy. That’s Altus, that’s the worlds strongest man symbol, and marked where I won on the map of the globe Altus is holding. And a plus one in Africa where I won. And then my second tattoo was my inspiration. And a much as I love Arnold I didn’t fancy having Arnold tattooed on me, so I got the next best thing. I got the Terminator (Endoskeleton) on my right arm. It’s my favorite movie and like I said it was the one thing that started me off, that blueprinted me to want to get into powerlifting/bodybuilding and to be honest, I’m sure thousands if not millions of people around the globe could say exactly the same thing, they wouldn’t be where they were now, if it weren’t for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

TAFs: If you had one dream project, besides the documentary of course, to work with Arnold on, what would it be a Terminator or some other film?

Eddie: No no, 1000% the dream job for me would be to land a part in a Terminator film alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and wrecking the T-1000 or whatever, for sure!