I’m challenging this team to do 75 Hard. The real program, exactly as Andy Frisella built it. Not a softened version, not a group fitness thing. Here is what it is, what it asks, and where to hear it from Andy himself before you decide.
75 Hard is a mental toughness program. Andy Frisella created it in 2019, and he is blunt about what it is not: it is not a fitness challenge and it is not a weight loss program. You will probably end up in the best shape of your life, but Andy calls that a by-product. The point is discipline. Confidence, self belief, fortitude, grit. The stuff that carries into every job we run and every commitment we make.
It costs nothing. There is nothing to buy and nothing to sign up for. It is five tasks a day for 75 straight days, and the whole program runs on your integrity. In Andy’s words, there is no system that checks up on you and no coach who checks up on you. You are learning to coach yourself. That is exactly why I want this team on it.
These five tasks get done every single day for 75 days. Andy’s words for the standard: zero compromises, zero substitutions. Tap any task for the fine print, because the fine print is where people fail.
You pick the diet, and it has to be one that improves your physical health and lines up with your goal, whether that is getting leaner or building muscle. Keto, paleo, macro counting, your call. What is not your call is bending it. One bite off plan ends your run. Andy’s example: one chocolate chip on a macro diet means you start over.
Alcohol is out completely. Not a beer, not a glass of wine when you get home, nothing for 75 days.
Grey area on a food? Andy’s FAQ gives the test: hold yourself to the highest standard possible, and be able to say with full confidence that you executed with zero compromise. If you have to ask whether it counts, choose the harder option.
The workouts cannot be back to back and cannot be split up. Each one is 45 continuous minutes. Andy’s rules article says the two workouts sit at least 3 hours apart, and his FAQ puts it at 3 to 4 hours, so plan on 3 to 4 and you satisfy both. They are separated on purpose. Andy says the separation exists because it is supposed to be inconvenient.
One workout must be outdoors, uncovered, regardless of the weather. Rain, snow, heat, cold. That is the point. The only out Andy gives is a genuine threat to your health or safety, and even then a missed task means a restart.
What counts: any deliberate exercise done with the intent to get better. Run, lift, cross training, yoga, a 45 minute walk. What does not count: steps you rack up during a normal day, errands, or physical work on a job site. That is activity, not a workout session. Scaling your fitness level is fine and expected. Two walks a day counts if that is honestly where your fitness is. Shortening or dropping a workout does not.
Plain, unflavoured, non carbonated water only. Nothing mixed in counts toward the gallon: no protein powder, no electrolytes, no pre workout, no flavour packets. You can drink those things separately if they fit your diet, but they do not move your gallon.
Start early and stay steady through the day. Andy is open about learning this the hard way: chugging what is left right before bed is miserable and it is what happens when the day gets away from you.
Non fiction, educational, aimed at improving an area of your life: business, personal development, your career. Audiobooks do not count. Andy also rules out digital books and entertainment reading. His line on it: this is not Harry Potter time.
One more rule people miss: finish the book you are on before you start the next one.
This is the task people most often blow off, and Andy says a lot of people fail the whole program on exactly this. It takes ten seconds. Take it anyway, especially on the days you least want to.
And hear me clearly on this one: your progress photo does NOT need to be posted in the group, and I am NOT asking you to post it. At all. Keep it on your phone, in your own album. Taken every day, that album is what shows your physical progress from Day 1 to Day 75, and it belongs to you alone. Nobody on this team will ever be asked to share it, post it, or show it to anyone.
What IS encouraged in the group is everything around the work: a photo of the gym, your watch showing the walk got done, the view from your hike, your book, your water jug. Post those freely. They are how we push each other. Just not the progress selfie. That one stays private.
Do not post your daily progress photo in the group. It is not expected, it is not required, and nobody is asking for it. That photo is for your own album, so that across 75 days you can see your physical progress for yourself.
Want to post in the group? Please do. A photo of the gym, your watch showing the walk was done, the view on your hike, those are encouraged, and they are how we keep each other going. The progress selfie is the one exception. Keep it for yourself.
This is the rule that runs the whole program. If you miss any task on any day, you restart at Day 1. Day 2 or Day 74, the result is the same. A 42 minute workout fails. Nine pages fails. One ounce short on the water fails.
There are no make-ups and no pauses. Not for travel, not for a work event, not for a busy week. Andy tells people not to wait for the right time, because if you wait for the right time you will never do it. His official FAQ has no sick day or injury exception either: if a task does not get done, the day does not count, whatever the reason. Rest, recover, and restart when you are able.
Restarts are individual. If one of us fails on Day 40, that person goes back to Day 1 and the rest of us keep our count. Nobody drags the group back and nobody gets carried.
You will see softer versions of this floating around online, with names like 75 Soft or 75 Medium. Those are not Andy’s program and they are not what we are doing. One workout a day, less water, alcohol on weekends, no restart rule. That is a different challenge wearing this one’s name.
“You can’t tweak the program to your liking. You can’t tailor it to your situation. The minute you start tweaking or compromising, that’s what opens the door to quitting.” Andy Frisella
The day runs from when you wake up to when you go to bed, per Andy’s FAQ. Not midnight, your actual day. Plan your workouts, your water, and your pages around that.
Do not take my summary as the program. Listen to the man who built it. Start with Episode 208.
The single listen Andy himself points people to. The complete 75 Hard program laid out start to finish: what it is, why it exists, every rule, and the standard you are holding yourself to. If you listen to one episode, make it this one.
The tight rules episode. Andy reorganised his original explanation into this one because the 2019 version rambled, and this is the version he sends people to for the rules themselves.
The original. This is where Andy first laid the program out in 2019, raw and unpolished, right after he built it. Worth hearing after the other two, for where it came from.
The ones everybody asks, answered the way Andy answers them in his official FAQ.
No. Not ever. The daily progress photo stays in your own private album, so you can see your physical progress on Day 75. I am not asking anyone to post it in the group at all. If you want to share something, share the work instead: the gym, your watch after a walk, the view on your hike. Those are encouraged. The progress selfie is not.
No. Andy’s FAQ is one word deep on this: each task must be completed for 75 days straight with no exceptions. A wedding, a work trip, a client dinner, none of it pauses the count. Decide that now, before Day 1, not in the moment.
No. Andy’s FAQ says cover cannot be used for any outdoor workout. Outside means outside.
No. A workout is a deliberate, continuous 45 minute session done for the purpose of exercise. A physical day on the job is real work, but it is not a session. A deliberate 45 minute walk is. Andy’s pages do not publish a steps rule; this is his intent test applied the way his guides apply it.
No. Audiobooks do not count toward the 10 pages. Physical book, eyes on the page. Listening on your commute is a good habit, it just is not this task.
Andy publishes no sick day or injury exception, and I am not going to invent one for him. Under the rules as written, a day where a task does not get done is a failed day, whatever the reason. So the honest play is rest, recover properly, and restart at Day 1 when you are able.
No. Andy’s FAQ: your day begins when you wake up and ends when you go to bed. Night shift and early risers, your day is your day.
Here is my ask. Listen to Episode 208. Read the five tasks again and sit with what they actually demand on a bad day, a travel day, a day when everything goes sideways at work. Then decide.
If you are in, you are in all the way, because the halfway version of this program is just exercise with extra steps. Andy built it hard on purpose. The difficulty is not a flaw in the design. The difficulty is the design.
I am doing it with you, under the same rules, with the same restart hanging over my head. Day 1 is coming. Be ready for it.