Eddie Hall has opened up about the mental health struggles he faced after stepping away from Strongman, admitting the loss of purpose after achieving his lifelong goal sent him into a dark place.
The former World’s Strongest Man revealed that retirement from elite competition brought back feelings of anxiety and depression that he had previously managed to escape through sport.
Hall explained that dedicating himself entirely to a goal had been the thing keeping him mentally grounded for years, but once that target disappeared, the emotional crash quickly followed.
“I’ve got lots of experience of being into heavy sport, i.e. heavy training, heavy competing, and then that stops, and it is what next?” Hall said in an interview with Generation Iron. “And a lot of things can happen to a man when the goal is taken away. It can almost take their life.”
The 2017 World’s Strongest Man winner reflected on his early years as a swimmer before his rise in strength sports, revealing that he had already experienced similar feelings as a teenager.
“I had it with the swimming when I was a young boy,” he explained. “I was a national champion swimmer, and I wanted to be an Olympic swimmer. And that failed for a number of reasons.”
Hall admitted the collapse of those ambitions triggered serious mental health issues during his teenage years.
“And that started off a load of anxiety and depression in my teenage years,” he said.
Strongman then became the thing that replaced that void.
Hall explained how the obsession with becoming the strongest man on the planet gave him complete focus and structure, eliminating the mental struggles that had followed him earlier in life, and made a promise to his nan that he would become the World’s Strongest Man.
“And then that sort of got replaced with the Strongman eventually,” he said. “It took me 10 years from the day I made the promise to my nan and the day I decided I was going to be the World’s Strongest Man.
“So chasing that goal and dream for 10 years just completely eliminated all anxiety issues, all depression issues because I was just so military focused on a target, on a goal. And that was just something that kept my head straight and narrow.”
For Hall, finally winning the World’s Strongest Man title should have been the ultimate high. Instead, it brought back the same emotional emptiness he had experienced after swimming.
“And then when I won the World’s Strongest Man, it was like it was all the swimming all over again,” he admitted. “It’s like what now?
“You sort of feel lost, and you lose your purpose, and then the anxiety creeps back in and then the depression creeps back in.”
Hall described the period after reaching the top of the sport as “a tough thing to get through”, but said he eventually realised the key was finding new challenges to chase.
He said: “The only thing that picked me up was resetting targets, resetting goals and chasing something else.”
That mindset eventually pushed him into a completely different chapter of his life, away from traditional Strongman competition.
Hall threw himself into television work, content creation and combat sports, keeping himself constantly occupied to avoid falling back into the same dark mindset.
“So, loads of things and that stemmed not just sport, but going into TV shows, producing films and TV shows and documentaries myself,” he said. “Doing loads of side quests, starting YouTube up, got into fighting, done boxing, MMA.”
The Strongman icon believes staying mentally engaged is crucial for athletes once their careers slow down or end altogether.
For Hall, the danger comes when there is suddenly nothing left to chase.
“So it’s just keeping the mind busy is the answer really,” he explained. “If you don’t do that, it can be a very dark, deep, horrible rabbit hole for any man.”
Featured image credit: The Good, The Bad & The Beast / YouTube / Eddie Hall / Instagram
