Deadlifting beef adds unnecessary weight to world of inspirational beefcakes

After his record-breaking lift, Eddie Hall fainted and went temporarily blind. He now thinks it took 10 years off his life. Illustration: Robin Hursthouse/The Guardian

There are probably sound structural reasons why the Eddie Hall deadlift world record video from July 2016 is so hard to stop watching, why it has become a sleeper internet phenomenon, a thing people go back to, theorise about, commune over in ways that seem both lighthearted and also deeply-felt in the way of all the best sport.

Part of this is its stark and simple theatre. The video is 55 seconds long. It features what seems at first to be an abandoned American-style fridge‑freezer, but turns out on closer inspection to be a single very square man, essentially a seamless slab of human muscle, quivering slightly, moaning to himself, profoundly alone even in front of a boisterous full-house crowd.