I tried the viral 75 soft fitness challenge – here’s what I learnt

Could the soft 75 challenge be more sustainable than its intense viral counterpart? I put it to the test

I took on the 75 soft challenge to see if I could change my habits in 75 days (The Independent/Emilie Lavinia)

When I first read about the 75 soft challenge, I thought, “sounds totally manageable, I’m in”. I’m always keen to take on a new wellbeing challenge but personally, I approach viral fitness trends with a degree of scrutiny. For me, anything that encourages more movement and healthier habits is a good thing, but many online challenges can be unsustainable, incompatible with a normal routine and, at their very worst, physically harmful and a little bit culty.

The 75 hard challenge hit TikTok back in 2019 and has since racked up more than 935 million views. The hardcore challenge was created by entrepreneur Andy Frisella who was inspired after interviewing James Lawrence – a superhuman who’s completed 50 Ironman races in 50 consecutive days across all 50 states.

The idea of #75hard is to "build mental strength and discipline" but it wasn’t a trend I was particularly keen to try. To complete the challenge, participants must follow a strict plan for 75 days to change their habits, build mental fortitude and build a strong, resilient body. But this wasn’t the reason I had an issue with it.

The 75 hard rules

• Follow any diet of your choosing. It must be a plan with the goal of physical improvement and no alcohol or meals outside your chosen diet plans are allowed
• Complete two 45 minute workouts per day – one of which must be outside
• Take weekly progress pictures
• Drink 1 gallon of water
• Read 10 pages of a book a day – not including audiobooks

If the idea of two 45 minute workouts a day has set your teeth on edge, I’m right there with you. To me, 75 hard seemed like a total bro-off and an entirely unsustainable challenge. While some kind of movement is advisable, even professional footballers aren’t playing a whole 90 minutes every day. And as for the “any diet” rule, there isn’t much direction there, which has led nutrition experts to criticise the plan for its vagueness and potentially encouraging disordered eating. Then there’s the fact that your water intake should be based on your size and your level of exertion, so a whole gallon really doesn’t seem necessary for most people.

75 hard might suit professional athletes but for the average person, it isn’t a sustainable plan for most bodies – especially female bodies. Studies have shown that women’s bodies don’t respond in the same way to prolonged high-intensity workouts and when coupled with strict diets and fasting, this can wreak havoc on your hormones and worsen hormonal issues like PCOS.

In response to the trend’s intense set of rules, a new challenge has popped up online: 75 soft. The 75 soft challenge presents a much more attainable set of rules that are better suited to the average person’s lifestyle and women’s bodies, so I was keen to try it for myself.

The 75 soft rules

• Eat well, add more nutritious foods into your diet and only drink on social occasions
• Train for 45 minutes everyday for 75 days. One day a week is to be active recovery
• Drink three litres of water a day
• Read 10 pages of a book a day 

With this challenge, you’re still expected to move your body – this is a fitness challenge after all – but the rules are much easier to follow. One 45 minute workout a day is the goal, but this can be any form of exercise and those following the trend on TikTok have posted videos of themselves doing yoga, Pilates, going for a walk and swimming. Moving for 45 minutes is a much more achievable goal than 90 minutes per day, but I wondered about the significance of the 45 minute mark.

I turned to F45 UK athlete, Rilwan Anibaba, for some answers and he explained that 45 minutes has been calculated as the optimum time to exercise. “We’ve all come to value exercise, not just for its physical benefits, but for the escape it offers from daily chaos. However, not everyone has hours to train each day,” he explains. “A 45-minute session, like those that we host at F45, strikes the perfect balance between being long enough for a focused, effective workout, yet short enough to fit into busy schedules, promoting consistency.”

The 75 soft trend also suggests that you should take one day a week for “active recovery”. Anibaba points out that even elite athletes take rest days because they know overtraining can negatively impact their performance. “Exercise causes micro-tears in muscles, so a rest or recovery day incorporating low-impact movements can be an essential component for repairing and rebuilding these muscles,” he says. “This in turn, supports muscle growth, increased strength, and better performance. If you are working out 4-5 days a week I recommend taking two recovery days per week to optimise performance.”

My 75 soft challenge experience

I took this on board and spent one of my 45 minute sessions a week just taking a walk to get my steps in. For the others I focused on lifting weights, running, doing yoga, HIIT workouts at home and training my lower body in the gym. I’m usually pretty good at drinking two to three litres of water a day, so this wasn’t too difficult but if you don’t regularly drink enough water, the challenge is certainly a good way to get your hydration levels up.

The lack of direction when it came to the diet meant that I didn’t make that many changes to my usual routine. I try to eat five to eight portions of fruits and vegetables a day, eat protein and healthy fats in the mornings and not eat too late. These are generally good rules to follow, but your own challenge might entail eating more veggies than usual, trying a protein shake, cutting out sugar or processed food or skipping fizzy drinks for 75 days. The only thing I’d personally avoid if you’re working out more is calorie restriction – our bodies need fuel for exercise so skipping meals before a workout or not eating enough and then pushing your body to its limit could do more harm than good.

I worked out for 45 minutes for six days and rested by just walking on one day (Emilie Lavinia)

Cutting out alcohol is one of the main benefits of 75 soft. Whenever I drink a glass of wine, I notice that my Oura ring will log a poorer quality sleep and slower recovery, so limiting my alcohol intake to social occasions definitely helped me to feel better over the course of the challenge. I’m not a huge drinker anyway, but you can definitely feel the effects of cutting down and, if you use a fitness tracker, you’ll be able to see the effects in realtime.

Now as for the reading element, you might be wondering why reading a book every day constitutes part of a fitness challenge. Well, the idea behind this is building your mental fitness. Studies have shown that reading is beneficial for cognition, memory and focus, so the more you do it, the more your brain will benefit. Plus, whether you read a novel for relaxation or a non-fiction book to learn something new, you can tailor your ten pages a day to your specific interests – you definitely don’t have to read Atomic Habits if you don’t want to.

The reading challenge was an interesting one for me. I prefer to spend an hour or more reading a book so I can really get into it, however, the ten pages a day routine started to stick quickly and I found myself looking forward to it. I’d read ten pages in the mornings to make sure I’d checked that part of the challenge off early doors and wouldn’t have to stress about it later, and it became a lovely part of my morning routine.

How to do the soft 75 challenge

There’s been a lot of praise for soft 75 online and with the start of a new season, now is as good a time as any to give it a go. I enjoyed doing it and it encouraged me to take better care of myself than I usually do. The thing that really helped me to stay focused on the daily goals was checking them off on my phone. I didn’t take any progress photos of myself like the hard 75 rules recommend because I feel that too much focus on changing your body can be a little toxic, however, if keeping a journal or taking a daily photo or video of yourself works for you, you can of course do this.

Holding yourself accountable with little checklists and habit markers can mean a challenge like this can become part of a longer-term routine, but ultimately, everything you do has to be compatible with your lifestyle. If you work particular hours or have kids to take care of, the way you do this challenge has to fit in with that, otherwise it’ll be unsustainable and definitely won’t be something you’ll be able to stick to in the long term.

Anibaba offers some helpful habit-forming advice to consider. “When taking on a challenge, it’s crucial to know and focus on your long-term goal, but it’s even more important to enjoy the process,” he says. “That enjoyment makes it more likely you’ll stick with it.”

He also recommends the following steps to make 75 soft work for you –

• Build slowly into the challenge, gradually increasing intensity 
• Develop a routine that you know will work for you, consistency is key. So, if your work schedule can be too hectic for evening sessions, prioritise morning or lunchtime sessions as you know these will be more realistic to stick to.
• Find accountability, whether through training with friends that have similar goals or a tracking journal. These strategies can turn a six-week challenge into a lasting lifestyle change.

So, will I be continuing the challenge beyond 75 days? I’m certainly going to try. Especially when it comes to reading ten pages in the morning and aiming for a 45 minute workout every day. However, I’m not going to beat myself up too much if I skip a gym session. Any healthy routine should be about enjoyment and never about guilt, and though the guidelines that come with challenges like this can be a great help when it comes to accountability and consistency, prioritising your mental health should also be your number one rule. For this reason, I’m definitely a fan of the soft life over the hard life.

Anibaba’s tips are a great starting point and I would echo the importance of starting off with small changes and easier workouts, gradually working up to harder challenges so that you can stay on top of your goals and feel positive about your wins, rather than feeling like you’re not doing enough.

Read more: I’ve walked 10,000 steps a day for two years – these five benefits made me keep it up