Former World’s Strongest Man turned boxer, Eddie ‘The Beast’ Hall, took on one his most daunting challenges to-date with Gymshark’s Ross Edgley — and the results are quite surprising.
In terms of feats of strength, Eddie Hall has done it all. After winning World’s Strongest Man 2017, and breaking both the deadlift and axle press world records, Eddie has turned his hand to the sport of boxing.
With a super-heavyweight clash between Eddie and Iceland’s Hafthor ‘The Mountain’ Bjornsson on the cards, Hall has been taking on new challenges with his training, in a bid to shed some pounds and become a lot fitter in the process.
With that in mind, Hall paired up with arguably one of the fittest humans on the planet in Ross Edgley. Ross has an impressive portfolio by his own accord — swam around the UK in 157 days, climbed a rope the height of Mount Everest (8,848 meters) and ran a marathon pulling a car — but the Navy Seal Fitness Test is a different ball game altogether.
Eddie Hall is a Navy Seal?
The Navy Seal Fitness Test (NSFT) is a tried and tested way of filtering out those fit enough to endure the arduous training involved with becoming a Navy Seal.
In terms of the bare minimum, prospective Seals are expected to be able to perform five basic physical tasks to determine whether they have what it takes. These are:
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- 500-yard Swim (in 12:30 mins or less).
- Minimum of 50 push-ups in two minutes.
- Minimum of 50 sit-ups in two minutes.
- Minimum of 10 pull-ups in two minutes.
- 1.5-mile run (in 10:30 mins or less).
And while Eddie was no doubt out of his comfort zone with a more endurance-based challenge, he chalked up some impressive results nonetheless.
After breezing past the minimum standard in the push-up test, Eddie scraped through the sit-up and pull-up test by just hitting the pass mark. But it was the 1.5-mile run that was to be the strongman’s demise, as he failed to hit the minimum standard, by clocking in with 11:27 mins — still impressive for a 26st 1lb / 366 lbs man.
But after failing to hit the mark on the run, Hall eased his way through the 500-yard swim, with an incredible time of 9:50 mins. Although, the strongman had a slight edge here, given that he swam at an elite level for Great Britain during his youth.
Nonetheless, given that Eddie managed to pass 4/5 of the events, it’s obvious that his work in preparation for his bout with The Mountain is paying dividends.