Something I’ve been seeing and hearing a lot recently is that people are basing a good bit of their training technique or habits off of what Eddie Hall used to do, especially amongst the younger guy’s. The biggest thing I see is that (in particular) a lot of young strongmen want to train beltless to build their core because “that’s what Eddie did”.
Something everyone needs to remember/understand is that Eddie had a relatively short career of just 7 years competing in strongman and that was the way he planned it to be.
In 2014 I attended a Eddie Hall seminar in Monsters Gym Carlow, during that seminar Eddie said that he would win WSM in 2016 and retire from the sport immediately after with the plan of getting into TV/Movies and making a living off that for the rest of his life. Now, as it happened he got a slight finger injury at WSM 2016 and didn’t win but he came back with a vengeance in 2017 to take the title, only days after winning he announced his retirement from the sport and we haven’t seen him compete since.
Something else to note was that Eddie was able to train as a pro athlete from around 2015, meaning he had a sponsor or sponsors that paid for him to train and compete. Eddie could now afford the best of food, regular physio, treatments and supplements to aid his recovery, he also had a (self made) hyperbaric chamber to use to aid his recovery and he didn’t have to work a full or even part time job, his job was to be the best athlete he could be!
So where am I going with this?? Yes Eddie was ridiculously strong, arguably the strongest static lifter there ever was, but Eddie didn’t plan on being in this sport for the long haul, longevity certainly wasn’t the name of his game and for the last few years of his sport he had everything he needed at his disposal to be the best he could be.
With plans of a short career and everything at his disposal to be the best he could be Eddie could push the barriers a lot more and take more risks with his training, I highly doubt that Eddie could have carried on the way he did and compete for 15-20 years, I doubt he could do it even more if he wasn’t a pro athlete with everything needed to succeed at his disposal.
Now im not knocking Eddie here, im a huge fan of his and im incridebly impressed at what he has achieved. I think he is a very smart man who made some very good decisions to get to the top as quickly as possible and get out of the sport to make a living doing TV/Movies off the back of his WSM title which will in the long run make him a lot more money than strongman ever will.
So when you decide to copy the methods that Eddie used like all the really heavy non supported work such as beltless squats, deadlifts and yoke runs maybe you should consider the facts above, like the short career and all he had at his exposal. Then consider what you have at your disposal in comparison to Eddie and consider how long you want to spend in this sport.
Does it still sound like a good idea to copy him??