Carrying around 300lbs of pure muscle is tough enough. Doing it through a military fitness assessment? That’s another story entirely — but that’s exactly what 2017 World’s Strongest Man Eddie Hall set out to do.
The 37-year-old strongman-turned-fighter took on the British Army’s Soldier Conditioning Assessment (SCA), a four-part test designed to measure aerobic endurance and full-body strength. For Hall — who once tipped the scales at 194kg during his peak competitive years and famously became the first man to deadlift 500kg — it was a chance to see how his power translated to military-grade fitness.
The Test: Four Challenges, One Beast
The SCA includes a 2km run, trap bar deadlifts, push-ups, and max pull-ups — each graded for performance rather than pass or fail. Overseen by British Army Airborne veteran Craig Hollman, Hall tackled the entire test on camera for his YouTube channel.
- The 2km Run
After an 800m warm-up, Hall set off on a treadmill aiming to hit the Army’s pass time of 10 minutes 50 seconds, with “elite” marks starting at 6:10. He looked set to finish comfortably under the mark — until disaster struck.
Midway through, Hall had to make an emergency trip to the toilet, losing vital seconds and ultimately clocking in at 10:57. Technically, a fail.
But given his 161kg frame, even getting close to that mark was impressive. As one fan later commented: “Seeing how well you did on the tests shocked me. The running at your size — I was just watching that treadmill bounce.”
- Trap Bar Deadlift
Next came a test right in Hall’s wheelhouse. Soldiers need to pull 80kg for three reps to pass, and 140kg for ten to hit the top score. The man who once tore a world record off the floor made light work of it, calling it “the movement that ultimately proved his forte during his peak strongman career.”
- Push-Ups
Then came the one-minute push-up test. Ten reps is a pass; fifty earns maximum points.
Hall — tipping the scales at more than double most soldiers — blasted out 62 reps. “Seriously impressive for 160kg,” wrote one YouTube viewer. Another joked: “Eddie reppin 50 press-ups sounds like a 1920s steam train.”
- Pull-Ups
The final challenge: max pull-ups, with three needed to pass and ten for full marks. Here, Hall faced his toughest obstacle, admitting: “I tore both my lats within the last 12 weeks.” Even so, he muscled out the three reps required — not bad for a man whose arms alone look like they could bend the bar.
Would He Have Passed?
Despite falling seven seconds short on the run, Hall asked Hollman whether his overall effort would count as a pass. The response: an emphatic yes.
Given his strength numbers, endurance effort, and weight, the veteran confirmed Hall would have “almost certainly” passed if not for the unexpected pit stop.
“I’m going to take that as a successful pass for myself,” Hall said at the end of the challenge. “Minus the sh**ing in the running, which if it didn’t happen I honestly think I would have been fine. I felt great, but life happens and I’m happy.”
Fans flooded the comments with praise. “Seeing how well you did on the tests shocked me,” one wrote, while another added, “The cage for pull ups was not big enough for you at all.”
Since retiring after his 2017 World’s Strongest Man win, Hall has dabbled in boxing, MMA, and all sorts of extreme fitness experiments — often training alongside athletes like UFC interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall. This latest challenge may not have earned him a formal Army badge, but it proved something else entirely: Hall’s engine matches his grit.
And even with a mid-run bathroom break costing him those seven seconds, it’s safe to say the Army test didn’t defeat him. “I’m going to take that as a successful pass for myself,” Hall said, laughing off the mishap. “Life happens — and I’m happy.”
Featured image credit: YouTube/Eddie Hall The Beast (Screenshot)
