My Hard-Ish 75 Update 1….

Hard-ish 75 week 1 update. But before then, an explanation…. A week ago I wrote that I was starting a challenge based on the Hard 75 that has been doing the rounds on social media. I’m doing it alongside my friend Finn. I’m not going into detail as to what the challenge is – if you want that, you can read it here.

This is the first of a weekly update about how it is all going.

A week in and I’m already learning a lot. I’m learning about my habits, my actions and my body. The obvious assumption would be that it’s the workouts and the eating that would be the hardest part to stick to, but I’ve not found that to be the case. I’ve actually found the reading to be the most difficult to stick to, which is interesting to me.

Hard-Ish 75 Exercise

As a personal trainer, I spend a lot of time in the gym, so the exercise isn’t too much of a challenge. Physically it’s difficult of course, but logistically it’s a doddle.

Exercise isn’t much of an issue for me. I’ve never not been motivated to do it and I’m interested in how my body copes with the volume. Generally speaking, I cope well with volume but I can forsee a situation in the near future where I have to manage training loads and types to cope with the daily training.

I’ve take a picture of the workouts I’ve done and written down what I haven’t pictured. Here’s this week…

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The other workouts I’ve done are a football match a sprint session and a walk, covering the rest of the week.

My usual training is almost all olympic weightlifting based, but there’s no way my central nervous system would cope with daily weightlifting workouts, nor would my body generally. With that in mind, I’ve mixed up my training, including more circuit and HIIT type sessions which has been a nice (yet tough) change.

I’ve added more kettlebell work back into my training, which I’ve enjoyed (it has kicked the crap out of me physically, but that’s a good thing!) Here’s a swing and push up superset from last week…

I’ve also hit my daily 10,000 steps, so it has gotten me off my feet a lot.

75 Hard-Ish Diet

The diet felt like a bit of a farce this week – not because I didn’t eat well, but because I was at a friend’s 40th birthday party on Saturday so the few pints put the kibosh on any strict dieting over the course of an entire week. Still, progress was made – I started the week at around 96kg and I ended it at 94.5.

I think in order to make a sustained change here I need to food prep more, which I will start at the weekend. It’s not a difficult thing to do, it just requires the time and effort. I have that time on Sunday, so I’ll do it then.

Water consumption is easy. It helps to drink a lot when you’re exercising, so I’ve used that as a good excuse to get more water in me.

75 Hard-Ish Reading

This has been interesting to me. It’s the element of the challenge I’ve struggled with most. I have to read 10 pages per day of a business, non-fiction or personal development book. On first glance, 10 pages looks like nothing and in reality, it isn’t. My problem is down to my habits though.

When I go to bed, I’m pretty tired (aren’t we all?!). Normally I’d scroll though social media, read the news and catch up with the Liverpool Football Club gossip. It’s not a habit I’m proud of and it’s one I’m trying to challenge as part of this hard-ish 75. It’s a distraction when it comes to the reading element of the challenge.

I need to get my reading done first – I’ve found a couple of times I’m struggling to keep my eyes open during the reading! That’s not because I’m not interested in the book I’m reading, I’m just tired! I’m finding when I’m awake I’m compensating by reading more than my minimum 10 pages, just to stay on top.

If you want to know what I’m reading…

I’m a bit of an economics buff and I was recommended a book by a friend called Money: Know More, Make More, Give More. It’s an interesting read so far. I’m 140 pages in so far and it hasn’t covered anything groundbreaking, but I’ll reserve judgement til the end of it. I’m going to do a 50-odd page deep dive on it in the next few days so really get into the meat of it so I’ll know more then.

Unexpected Challenge Benefits

With any process goal like this, there will be unexpected revelations and benefits. Here are a few I’ve noticed so far this week…

1. I’ve enjoyed mixing up my exercise regime. It’s forcing me to be creative when training.
2. I’ve filmed new exercises for my YouTube exercise library. This has given me more content and helps clients to see exercise technique they may have forgotten.
3. It has put me into a habit I enjoy, but have fallen out of – daily reading. It’s here to stay now.

That’s all for days 1-7. There’ll be a weekly update with new revelations, so keep coming back!

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