"Hall bends down and straps his fingers to a bar loaded with vast weights wrapped for the occasion in shiny red plastic like a row of Dutch cheeses. He crouches, then lifts, the bar twanging and bending with extraordinary violence, torque surging through his body, skull throbbing, blood starting to drip from his nose and ears, the power of a one-litre petrol car coursing through each of his Iberian ham thighs."
"There is time for a glimpse of a little mischief, some static showboating as Hall stands there holding on even after the judge has barked his affirmation. Finally he drops the heaviest weight any human has ever dead-lifted, collapses backwards and is mobbed tenderly by a stage-rush of attendant sub-strongmen, while the MC shouts in a husky, scandalised tone: Five HUNDRED kilograms has been DONE."
"Perhaps one part of the video's viral power is the fact it is a meeting of the oldest and newest things. Lifting an object: this is pretty much the most basic, species-level act, the first thing anyone ever did. Factor in the timing. The half-tonne record was passed just as YouTube was blooming into the fifth dimension, outsourced space in the human mind."
Eddie Hall's July 2016 deadlift presents a stark, compact spectacle that melds primitive physicality with modern viral timing. The 55-second clip frames Hall as a square, slab-like man quivering slightly and moaning amid a full-house crowd. He straps his fingers to a bar loaded with weights wrapped in shiny red plastic, crouches and lifts as the bar twangs and bends, blood starts to drip from his nose and ears, and torque surges through his body. He holds after the judge's call, drops the half-tonne, collapses, and is then tenderly mobbed while the MC proclaims Five HUNDRED kilograms has been DONE. The lift's primal act and alignment with YouTube's rise amplify its aura and cultural resonance.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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