In this interview, strongman Eddie Hall recounts a severe health scare that occurred five weeks before he won the 2020 World's Strongest Man title. Routine blood work revealed dangerously high hemoglobin levels and liver and kidney markers far beyond normal ranges, placing him at an extremely high risk of heart attack and stroke according to his doctor's risk chart. Hall, who was weighing around 196–200 kg (≈32 stone) at 6'2", describes the physical strain of his training as a "suicide mission" and admits he often went to bed convinced he might not wake up, driven by an obsessive desire to win the title. After securing the championship, he decided to shed weight to lower his health risks. The conversation also touches on his peak weight, the mental toll of competing at such extremes, and the reality of living with a body on the brink of catastrophic failure.
Have you ever had any health scares?
The only. What is it now? So the only health scare I had really was five weeks before I won the World's Strongest Man. As I went to a doctor and had a full blood works and everything was on the brink. Like, kidney markers were like, off the charts, Liver markers were off the charts. The biggest concern was my hemoglobin, like, the thickness and sludge of the blood. You know, how could the consistency of your blood would. And he just put me into like, he drew it on a memory, drawing it on a piece of paper for me and be like, right, so you've got the, the Fat Bastard scale and you've got someone at like, say if that's like a chart here, right? So you've got someone like 100 kilo, you know, a big human being, you know, that's going to be like, getting on the top end of that scale is like, you know, heart attack risk, stroke risk, and then you've got someone like 22, 24 stone, like 100 and 130, 140 kilo. They're like way off the chart, you know, they're like, you're in danger zone here. You know what I mean? Your hemoglobin is a fake. You, liver and kidneys are on the brink. I was 200 kilo. So when you put me, when he wrote it down and put me into a chart, you've got high risk, super high risk. And then I was like, Eddie Horrify. I was up here, like, in, off the charts. And he said, like, that's like, that's like heart attack and a stroke risk, very high, extremely high. Definitely gonna have a heart attack and a stroke. And it was like, wow. And that's when it sort of hit me is like, I am on the brink.
Wow.
Everything was working overtime to keep my body from having a heart attack or a stroke, right? So that's why I won my title and retired. Just get that body weight down instantly. Just get those markers down and just get myself out of that danger zone territory.
Did that scare you?
Of course, yeah. Yeah. I mean, when a doctor's looking at you and he's saying, If I lined 80 million people up or 70 million people up at the time, the whole population of the uk, if you lined everybody up in a row, like, who's most likely to have a heart attack in the stroke, he said, you'd be at the top of that list. I'm like, yeah, that's. Wow. It just made sense when he laid it out like that put it in the chart and talked about the P. You know, you're the most likely. And I remember there was like. And we all get it. You know, you sort of drive into the gym and you felt like a little palpitation in your chest. You're like, oh, this is it. You know, you'd have these scares, but for me, those were real concerns. Yeah. You know, you get those little, those little ache or something in the chest. You're like, oh, this is it. Oh, God, no. And then you recover, like, ah, it's fine, I'll carry on.
Yeah.
But those were real concerns for me. And I'll never forget that. The last five weeks of training for the World's Strongest man, and I was like, it was almost like a suicide mission. It was almost like I just didn't care because I wanted to win that title so badly. It was either win the World's Strongest man or life is not worth living for. So I was honestly going to bed every night and I, I sort of had the conversation in my head is like, if you don't wake up tomorrow, are you going to be sorry? And I'd be like, nah, it, you know, I have to win this title. I honestly thought I'd go to bed every night thinking I wasn't going to wake up the next day. That was my sleep routine of, like, talking to myself, of like trying to convince myself that nearly dying or possibly dying is gonna be worth it in the. In the long run. And it was, it was. I mean, it was.
But it sounds like that's what it took.
Yeah. No, it's hard. Yeah. It's life on the line. Shit.
Wow.
People. People say you take risks and put your body out there. That's, that's taking the risk. Putting for my height, weighing 200 kilo was surreal.
And what's the heaviest you've ever weighed?
Exactly. Exactly. 196 kilo is my heaviest. Right. So that's 32 stone.
Just shy of at 6 foot 2.
6 foot 2.
Not at 6 foot 9 or 10.
No, no. This is the thing. I was as heavy as Thor and Brian and whoever else, but six, seven inches shorter than them. Eight inches shorter than four.
