#75Hard: Hustle Culture in Exercise Form
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😔 Last week, I “failed” #75Hard 😔
After 63 perfect days, I failed on day 64. It was an unforeseen 12-turned-13-hour workday, the longest in my 3.5 years at my day job, and as it pushed toward 9pm, I chose rest and dinner over 1.5 hours of workouts that I frankly didn’t need…
And yet, when I woke up the next morning, I was greeted by the image below. A picture of the #75Hard creator and founder, Andy Frisella, staring back at me with these words:
“What happened? You didn’t mark everything complete. That means you did the work and forgot to check everything off, or you let your inner bitch voice beat you. Which is it?”
Inner bitch. Inner bitch, huh?
I didn’t even notice those words at first. I was too stuck on the “failed” plastered across the screen. The shame and “you’re weak” message that was emanating from this bulky man staring at me with his arms crossed.
And I tapped I failed.
I was already a little bit bummed about not finishing. But to have the blatant shame being shoved in my face? To be shamed by this damn man who I didn’t even know, who didn’t know my goals and why I even started this challenge in the first place…It got me frustrated AF.
About a week before my supposed “failure” as Andy Frisella would have me believe, I went on a #75Hard rant on my Instagram.
#NOEXCUSES? BULLSHIT…
You see, days before that I had gone on an almost 8-mile round-trip, 4+ hour hike. It was well beyond my daily #75Hard commitment and I was so proud of myself because it was the easiest hike I’d done all year physically. My body was clearly well conditioned, despite not having set foot on a trail in months. And yet, that night, my body wasn’t in quite so good a mood.
You see, the 8 mile trip through Chinook Pass and along the Pacific Crest Trail was dusty as hell. I spent 4 hours inhaling dirt and my chest was revolting against it. Deep breaths sent shooting aches through my chest, into my neck, throw my jaw and ear, and around to my shoulder. I did perhaps the exact opposite of what I should have done in that situation: I started googling my symptoms. I got everything from lung cancer to bronchitis until I found something that ticked all the boxes, so I took a stab at a self-diagnosis that seemed to fit: pleuritic chest pains. Essentially, an aggravation of the air sacks in your lungs that should resolve itself shortly.
I’m telling you all this because I still drug myself out of my house to get in the obligatory daily outdoor workout. And I was frustrated. On my Instagram stories, I went on a #75Hard rant.
I talked about how this round of #75Hard was one that I had really enjoyed, for the most part. I talked about how I went into this round of #75Hard with really good intentions and was doing it for the right reasons. I talked about how I wanted to challenge myself. How I wanted to get my habits back and I knew that to do so I needed to be a little stricter.
However, I was frustrated. I was frustrated because of the whole “no exceptions” and “no excuses” mentality was turning this into something I was dreading. That the no excuses, “you’re weak if you quit” mentality of this challenge was negating all the progress I’d made. The fact that I seemingly “couldn’t” rest when it was clearly what my body wanted and needed was souring the whole experience for me.
I have never thought and will never think that this is the best way to approach a fitness routine and self-care that lasts. That’s just not how our bodies work. Sometimes we need recovery days. Sometimes we don’t sleep well. Sometimes we’re sick. Shit happens in our lives - inconveniently and often - that throws off our best-laid plans. But, #75Hard? It doesn’t care. It tells you to show up anyway and I think that’s a great way to resent the very things you’re doing to take care of yourself…
This day, my body was telling me to rest. My chest was in pain from my exertions the day before, but #75hard? It doesn’t allow for rest days. Rest days are for the weak. Rest days are when you let your “inner bitch” win, right, Andy Frisella? But it wasn’t my inner bitch that day…it was my very body (and I’ve got a damn good awareness of when my body is revolting against me vs when I’m just being lazy)! And yet#75Hard doesn’t ever believe there’s a valid reason to take a break.
Even on a day when I forgot to track my activities in the app, I woke up in the morning to that same image up above: an arms-crossed Andy Frisella staring down at me telling me that I’ve failed. And even now that I have “failed”, I still kind of find myself saying: “fuck you! No, I haven’t!”
Prior to my “failure”, I was contemplating continuing #75Hard. I was contemplating restarting, re-trying. But, ever since my single-day hiccup last Sunday and the “shaming” tactics and emphasis on failure, I don’t think I will. Why?
#1
I DON’T NEED YOUR SHAME - I’M HARD ENOUGH ON MYSELF.
I keep picturing that final image from the #75Hard app above. Andy Frisella staring down at me, arms crossed. Words like “inner bitch” and failure splayed across the screen. Now, all it does is piss me off.
I am hard enough on myself. I already have crazy high expectations of myself. I’m already a recovering perfectionist. I don’t need my workouts to become another thing to shame myself for and, honestly, by the end of this challenge, that’s what it had started to turn into.
Despite all the good intentions and doing #75Hard for the right reasons, it started to feel like it was getting in the way of my life. I started to feel like I was resenting the activities that made me feel good, strong, energized, and like myself again. I started to feel like I was shaming myself when I didn’t put in “enough” effort or when I wasn’t getting “enough” results or I wasn’t reading “enough.” It started to all become a question of “enough-ness” because that’s how this challenge is structured.
As soon as I started to achieve my goal of getting my routines and habits back, it started to not feel like enough. My goals started to not feel like enough. And it made me realize that the perfection-centric focus of this challenge triggered my worst, most self-sabotaging mindsets.
#2
IT’S HUSTLE CULTURE PERSONIFIED
The circumstance that ruined my #75Hard run was a 12-turned-13-hour workday. Sundays are typically long days for me in general with my work schedule, often running 10 hours. But I had a plan to get my workouts in around my 10-hour day. And yet when I took a quick look at my inbox, I realized how many emails and loose ends I had to tie up before my first appointment. In a split second, my 10-hour day turned into an 11-hour day.
Then, between tutoring sessions (what I do for my day job) and on my lunch break, I was fielding inquiries and time-sensitive requests from advisors. Suddenly, I was eating lunch at my desk.
Then, a last-minute, urgent request came in from a frantic student in desperate need of help in preparation for her Calculus test. And suddenly my day was now an hour longer. As we were working through her Calculus, she started freaking out even more, realizing that the time remaining in her session was ticking down. So, I offered to stay a little longer with her to help her finish her work. Paid of course.
By the time I finished answering my emails and tying up loose ends at the end of my day, it was nearing 9 pm. It was 13 hours after that initial email check that led me into the busiest, most chaotic day of my entire career with my day-job company. I still hadn’t eaten dinner and I was exhausted, barely able to keep my eyes open. You could argue I had bad boundaries that day but, eh, I’m human. So, I made the best choice I could for myself.
Andy Frisella and the #75Hard die-hards would’ve insisted that I tell my “inner bitch” to shut up and get to work. But, I don’t think there’s anything anyone could say that could’ve convinced me that that was the right move.
That’s the problem with the #75Hard approach. Everything about that final, frowning, Andy Frisella screenshot implies that my decision was the wrong one. That I’m a “bitch” because I chose to rest when my body was aching for it. But, does it make you weak or a “bitch” to have needs? To rest? To listen to your body? I don’t think so. Not at all.
Perhaps it’s because the experience of burnout is so near and dear to me (as a freaking burnout coach) and perhaps it’s because I know that burnout isn’t just about long work hours and to-do lists…
You can burn out from your routines. You can burn out from your workouts. I used to dismiss adrenal fatigue as a fallacy because it wasn’t medically recognized. However, burnout wasn’t medically recognized until 2019. Now, it is. The WHO recognizes it. The Mayo Clinic recognizes it. And there are a shit-ton of us out there who have experienced it. Who is to say that adrenal fatigue isn’t the same way?
As a burnout coach, I am now surprised I lasted as long as I did in the #75Hard challenge. That I didn’t see the signs before. Because #75Hard is hustle culture personified. It’s hustle culture in the form of an exercise program. In hustle culture, work is the most important thing. It’s about working long hours. Time off is lazy. Is that not what #75Hard is promoting? Sorry. I just can’t get behind it anymore…
#3
IT LOSES SIGHT OF THE ULTIMATE GOAL - GROWTH!
Why the hell do any of us do these kinds of things to ourselves? Why do we make these crazy commitments? We do us high-achievers have so many goals? Well, the simple reason for it all is this: growth!
How my experience with #75Hard ended has shown me, more than anything, that #75Hard completely loses track of what something like this should all be about: growth. The emphasis is put on box checking. It emphasizes that the length of time that you do something is more important than the improvements you make over time. That became abundantly clear when the #75Hard screamed “you failed” so loudly on my last day.
Honestly, nobody could tell me that ANYTHING about the 63 days of #75Hard that I did was a failure.
In those 63 days, I…
🏋️ Completed 126 workouts
💦 Drank over 8000 oz of water
🍷 Haven’t had a drop of alcohol
⚖️ Dropped 20 lbs
📚Read 6 books
And yet, by #75Hard and Andy Frisella’s standards, I “failed” this challenge. But, you know what? I don’t feel like a failure. Not at all. Not in the slightest.
I started this challenge for myself with a single intention: to get back the habits that I’ve lost over the last year. Time will tell if I’ve done that, but I sure as hell feel like I have. And - “75 hard failure” or not - I’m so damn proud of myself.
When you do something for a purpose, for yourself, for the right reasons and not for some arbitrary title or label, it takes on a deeper meaning.
So, what did this experience teach me?
It taught me that, yes, sometimes we do need to be stricter and have more discipline with ourselves to get the results we want and to achieve the goals we have for ourselves. That was my original intention with this program: to be more strict with myself to get my habits back and I did that.
It taught me that anything - even a fitness challenge - is about my goals for myself, not the goals that someone else has for me. Andy Frisella says that doing the challenge for 75 days is the most important thing. He says that you’re a failure if you don’t complete the 75 days. But, I disagree. And, frankly, my perspective is all that matters. If I’m proud of what I’m done, then pride is all I should feel.
It taught me that sustainability is and always will be the most important part of self-care. If you can’t maintain a lifestyle you’re creating, it’s not worth creating in my opinion. You can’t resent it. It just doesn’t work that way.
75 Hard DID Work for Me…
I lost 20 pounds. I’m not going to say it didn’t work for me. It did. But, I’m a burnout and stress coach.
I’m too close to and aware of the potential for burnout and stress to seep into my life to ignore the fact that a training program like #75Hard will likely only trigger me in the long run. That - more than anything - is why I’m not a fan of it and why I’ll don’t think I, in good faith and in alignment with values, could recommend or engage in it again.
