Strongman Eddie Hall Tries to Get the ‘World’s Biggest Pump’ on Chest Day

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Eddie Hall has been on a real journey with his training over the last couple of years. Not content with winning multiple titles as a competitive strongman (including World’s Strongest Man in 2016), Hall leaned down dramatically, shedding 100 pounds from his massive strongman frame and throwing himself into training for a new, admittedly short-lived career as a boxer.

Most recently, he has announced that he is about to enter the world of bodybuilding, which means another shift in his training: instead of working towards strength as his goal, it’s aesthetics. In a new video filmed during a chest day workout on his YouTube channel, Hall outlined some of the changes he’s been making to his gym sessions.

“I’ve been training as usual, still doing more of a strongman workout as of now,” he says, “but I think I’m really going to tune in and get more bodybuilding workout in today, so it’s going to be a lot of time under tension, loads and loads of reps, just getting loads of volume in the chest.”

He starts the workout on the bench press. In his strongman training, Hall would load up the bar with more weight on each set, performing fewer reps per round until he hit his max. As this time he’s focusing on maximizing the effectiveness of each repetition in terms of providing stimulus to the muscle fibers, he is lifting lighter than he is used to at 240 pounds, and focusing on volume of reps instead.

“We’re keeping the weight light, and we’re just going to constantly keep the muscle moving, keep the tension on constantly,” he explains. “That is also a part of bodybuilding, it’s getting that lactic build-up in the muscle. And before that pump goes, you’re going back into another set. So it’s just keeping the pump in the muscles the whole way through the session. It’s hard. It’s not like you’re doing a lot of weight, and the reps aren’t particularly massive either, but when you’re only having two or three minutes rest, it hurts.”

After churning out the reps on the flat and incline bench press, Hall moves onto machine flys, with some coaching advice from YouTuber and bodybuilder Jesse James West.

“This is amazing, how much I’ve ballooned up,” he says of his pump. “It’s incredible. Maybe I’m starting to enjoy this.”