Eddie Hall talks about his son Max following him into strongman competition. Hall expects Max will eventually be stronger than him, and discusses how he's approaching training his son without pushing too hard.
Will your son be world's Strongest man one day?
Oh, that's a good question. I. You know, if you. Deep down inside, I would love him to be. And deep down inside, I would love to push him hard and pressure him to do that, but I feel like. And I've been there myself, if you put too much pressure on a kid, they go the opposite way, and they almost, like, want to defy their parents, so.
Did you ever do that?
What? To my son.
Defy your parents?
So I had it when I was. When I was Max's age, I was, like, a national champion swimmer. Like a very, like, Olympic standard. I was on the junior Olympic team. And up until that point, it was super relaxed. You know, they would, like, take me to training, drop me off and leave me to it, wouldn't it? You know, they come to the odd competition, oh, well done. You got another first, you know. But the second I got put onto this Olympic squad was the second it got serious. And the second my parents were like, right, you've got to go this training session. Oh, you finished 10 minutes early. That's not good. You got to make it up next time. And, like, turning up to the competitions. But, like, everything just took it up a mega, serious notch, and it just made me hate it. The second my parents started pushing me into training is the second I did it, and the second my. My times and my PVs and results just went up. Just dropped out the ass.
Yeah.
So I've been there myself, and I know what pressure from your parents does. Support, you know, just taking me there, Have a good session, picking me up. Oh, you won. Another goal. Well done. Support is great, but pressuring, like, you've got to go to session. You've got to do this many laps. You've got to do what the coach says. Those are two totally different things.
Yeah.
So, I mean, with Max, I said, for years, come the gym with me, like, from age five, come the gym. And he's always said, no, dad, no, no, no, no. He said, When I'm 10, I'll come training with you. 10 sounds like a good age. And you know what? I stepped back. I was like, you know, he's right. You know, body development and everything. He's probably right. Yeah. Leave until he's 10. And then on his 10th birthday, we started training here in the gym. So I go in the gym four times a week, two hours a session. And he's done that consistently now for three years. He's just turned 13.
Wow.
So he's, you know, barely Missed any training sessions. And anytime I've tried to push him, we've just butted heads. Like anytime I tried to force him to do anything or do a heavier weight, I almost feel like we could just break loose and break into a fist fight at any second. And honestly, I'm actually quite scared of the little bastards. He's going to be so much bigger than me, so pressure is not the way, you know, I'm giving him the tools. I hire a coach for him. So I had a coach for the whole family. Just like pts for my mom, my dad, my, you know, my wife, my son, whoever, you know, whoever's in the family, you know, and he takes him to the gym and he does the sessions with him and he does his programming and it works really well because he's got a mate, he's got someone he can talk to, he's got somebody can, you know, talk about girlfriends and whatever else and, and whatever goes on at school. And he's got like. I've sort of like employed his best friend for him. Yeah. You know, to go and take in the gym, which has been great. And he, I feel like that gets the best out of it.
You must secretly want to train with him though.
Yeah, no, I do.
Reach your son.
I do. Yeah. Now and again I'll join in like.
Okay, you know, he's cool with that.
He lets you. He's cool. Yeah. Now and again I'll be like, right, I'll ring his coach up and like, I'm gonna take him today because sometimes I just like to remind him what hard work is. So now and again, you know, his coach off. Right. Right, mate, we're gonna train hard today, you know what I mean? And we'll go and I'll push him on absolutely everything. And he knows it and he says it, but I'll just say like, you know, that's. This is how you should. This is how I train. You know, this. If you want to be a top level strongman, this is what you've got to do. So now and again I'll do that with him. And I think it clicks, you know, it goes back to his coach and he does push that little bit harder. Yeah. So it's little incentives, little, little pushes. But not, not to the point where if he's not doing the reps or if he fails something, I'm getting angry with him, you know, because that, that's, that's quite an easy thing to do, isn't it? Get angry with your kid for underperforming and I don't want to be that parent.
No. And he's what, 13, is he now?
Just turned 13.
And what's he deadlifting?
160 kilos.
Most adults can't do that.
So I weighed him Yesterday, actually. He's 101 kilos.
He's 13. What year is that in school?
Year nine. Just gone into.
He must be twice the size of.
All the other kids and also the youngest as well. If he was another two weeks younger, he'd still be in year eight. So he's. He's ginormous. Absolutely ginormous. He's five foot eleven. I mean, he's basically six foot. You know, he's. He's a big. Yeah, he's going to be. If he's. If he's under 6 foot 5, I'll be very surprised.
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