As the chairman of Matchroom Sport, Eddie Hearn has overseen many legendary battles in the boxing ring, but a recent opportunity to grace the cover of a fitness magazine gave him the motivation that he needed to reverse the effects of long days in the office and late nights at ringside. Now, one year on, Hearn is learning to maintain his fitness without an impending photoshoot and has been forced to learn that sustainable training is how those valuable gains are maintained. Thankfully, as M&F learned, this Londoner is up for the fight so we sat down with the boxing boss to learn more.
With around ten weeks to prepare, Eddie Hearn took Men’s Health up on being the cover star for the Jan/Feb 2024 edition but for this successful boxing promoter, the challenge was about more than making the glossy cover of a magazine. For years he had slowly watched his health and physique suffer as he prioritized meetings and getting contracts over the line for fighters like Anthony Joshua, only to see his own training sessions pushed further and further back. “… probably the only part of my life that maybe in the past I’ve been, a little bit, kind of lacking in confidence with is my physique,” he shares with Muscle & Fitness. Hearn explains that he’d never really lifted weights but always wanted to add some lean mass to his frame. At 6’5’’, packing some size onto those long limbs would take monumental effort, but he is getting there.
Eddie Hearn Knows His Strengths and Weaknesses
Much like a pugilist in the run up to a big bout, Hearn began lifting before the shoot, dropped calories, and the results were impressive. “I’ve always been lucky, because I’ve been around boxing and strength and conditioning and training and nutrition for so long, I’m kind of like an unqualified expert on it anyway, but knowing about it and doing it is something completely different,” admits Hearn.
A keen runner, the promoter says that when it comes to strength training, he had to accept that he needed someone to motivate him, and took on personal trainer Kai Peacock to keep him accountable. It’s a great lesson for the rest of us: Feeling unmotivated or intimidated by a particular training discipline? Don’t ditch it, but rather seek professional support.
When the cover challenge was complete, Hearn had lost a significant amount of fat and added some muscle. His clothes were baggy and he was proud of the accomplishment, but with meetings being called left and right, and emails flooding in from different time zones, Hearn would need to find a way to stay in shape in a sustainable way.
Hearn admits that, understandably, some weight has come back on this year, but he also acknowledges that during his lightest phase, Hearn often felt weak. With winter now setting in and normal life taking hold, he’s still around 15 pounds down from where he was before he got serious with training, and has completely recompiled his ratio of muscle to fat. Maintaining those workouts after the camera’s have left the room is in part owed to the lessons Hearn has learned from the sport that he works in, and he hopes others, and specifically young people might get off their cell phones and games consoles and become active themselves. “Away from the academic life in a classroom, sport taught me more…
Particularly, boxing taught me more than anything I ever did,” he explains. “So, you know, if you’re talking about boxing particularly: Manners, discipline, respect, physical health, mental health, teamwork, individuality, winning, losing… You know everything that you need in life, really. And I just feel that. There’s no one that doesn’t get active or go to the gym who doesn’t feel better afterwards.”
Hearn jokes, with some seriousness, that he often feels tempted to bribe his family members to get off their chairs and do some exercise because he understands that it would be an investment in their health. It’s not such a crazy idea, governments are often looking to encourage the population to get fitter by offering some kind of financial incentive. But back at home, Hearn is still working on his own workout wrinkles, and admits that his nemesis isn’t a boxer on the other side of the ring, but rather it’s those sneaky sugary snacks. “… Dana White will sometimes post, and he’s got a six pack, and I send it to Kai and say, ‘Mate, what’s going on, you know?’ And he goes, ‘Well, if you stop eating sugar for a start, it would actually be a good place,” That’s the thing about sustainable fitness, it’s an ongoing journey.
Eddie Hearn Pushes and Pulls His Way to Being Fit
Hearn splits his workout depending on how many sessions his schedule allows, opting for full body when sessions are in short supply, and a more detailed approach in a regular week. Under the advice of his trainer, Hearn tries for two push and two pull sessions per week, alternating with upper and lower body focused sessions. He still loves to run, and often hits five cardio sessions per week. Still focused on building muscle, Hearn loves to look at the numbers of the plates and machines and progressively increase them as his increasing strength allows.
As a creature of the world of late-night boxing, Hearn now realizes that there were times when he overtrained in the past, trying to cram in a run where rest was more important, and that this approach was actually doing more harm that good. By wearing a WHOOP, he now knows when to prioritize recovery.
“I’d fly back overnight, sleep for two hours and then say I’m gonna go and run a 10K tonight, you know? Massively over strain,” he explains. “And I feel like it was actually just depleting me. So, I’ve got much better at managing my sessions, so I know that if I haven’t slept well or my recovery is not good, I’ll actually have a day off.”
To run or not to run will be a choice Hearn must make in November when he heads to Philadelphia to back Jaron Ennis when he clashes with Karen Chukhadzhian at the Wells Fargo Center on November 9. Ennis is 32-0 in professional competition. One way to maximize gym sessions and cut out the travel time has been to build his own gym. Hearn has made space at Matchroom HQ in Brentwood, England, for a dedicated fitness space, and says that his own progress has spurred on his colleagues to let off some of their own steam while getting a sweat on.
“Just trying to create that kind of environment for wellbeing in the work place,” he says. For Hearn, magazine covers are a great accolade, but his most important goals are to become better at his job and to feel content that he’s living a balanced life. “It’s a respect thing for yourself, and I think we shouldn’t shy away from the truth of that,” concluded Hearn.
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