Since quarantine began, strongman Eddie Hall has been posting videos of his home workouts, including variations that are suitable for the whole family. But Hall’s latest training video is something a little different; a time-lapse following his efforts to lose weight and train his core, by performing 100 situp reps every day for an entire month.
It’s the kind of fitness challenge that you see all over YouTube—but not what you might expect from a hulking strongman. Hall explains that it’s all in aid of his mission to get lean in preparation for his impending boxing match with strongman rival Hafthor Bjornsson.
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At the start of the month, Hall weighed 385 pounds, which is already considerably lower than the 440 pounds he weighed when he won World’s Strongest Man in 2017. In addition to the situp challenge, he reduced his calorie intake, and eased back on the heavy weightlifting in favor of more cardio work and activation exercises. “Training for strength while trying to lose weight really isn’t the way,” he says, “but I’m keeping the power there.”
Hall broke the 100 reps down into sets each day, doing as many reps as he can in one continuous sitting—which on Day 1, is around 40. By the end of the month, his endurance went way up. “I tried to do 100 situps in one go, but what I ended up doing was as many situps as I could, then doing the second half to take me to 100,” he says. “When I first started the most I could do was around 40. Towards the third week, I was getting about 70 to 75 situps in one go, then I’d do the last 235, 30 situps in one go as well.”
At the end of the month, Hall is noticeably leaner, having dropped fat in his stomach area, with visible abs. He weighs in at 366 pounds; that’s a loss of nearly 20 pounds.
“I feel great for it,” he says. “All the excess fat’s gone, my abs have come out massively, so I’m really happy with the results. Obviously I’ve been doing a lot more cardio; cycling, swimming, a lot of boxing, and I’ve completely changed my training. So of course the muscle mass is going to decrease slightly, so the weight loss is going to be a bit of muscle mass as well. Which is fine, I’ve got to bring it all down… I don’t think I’m going to be going into the ring at 160-plus kilos.”
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