Every difference in one table
| — | 75 Hard | 75 Medium |
|---|---|---|
| Workouts | 2 × 45 min daily, one outdoors, separated | 1 × 45 min daily, no rest days |
| Water | 1 US gallon — 3.8 L, fixed | Half your bodyweight in ounces — scaled |
| Diet | Followed exactly, zero deviations | Your plan, held on 90% of days |
| Alcohol | Banned, all 75 days | Usually folded into your nutrition plan |
| Reading | 10 pages non-fiction | 10 pages, any book |
| Photo | Daily, mandatory | Daily, in most versions |
| Missed day | Restart at day one | Spend one of ~7 tolerance days |
| Author | Andy Frisella, 2019 | Nobody — community variant |
| Daily time | ≈ 2 hours | ≈ 1 hour |
The headline change is not the important one
Everyone compares the workouts — two a day against one. Fair enough: over 75 days that is roughly 150 hours of your life against 75, a difference measured in weeks, and the single outdoor session with no rest days is still a real commitment on the Medium side.
But the rule that changes who finishes is the scoring. Hard is binary: 75 perfect days or day one. Medium asks for all tasks on at least 68 of 75 days — about one imperfect day per eleven. That is not generosity; it is roughly the rate at which normal life produces a fever, a delayed flight or a work deadline across eleven weeks. Hard treats those days as proof the attempt is over. Medium prices them in and keeps you moving.
Why this matters psychologically. On day 44 of Hard, one slip erases 43 days, and the rational-feeling response for many people is to quit entirely rather than restart — all-or-nothing thinking with a rulebook behind it. On Medium the same slip costs one of seven tokens, so the sensible move is always to continue. The clause does not just punish differently. It changes what your brain does the evening after a bad day, and that evening is where these challenges are actually won or lost.
Water, scaled versus fixed
Small rule, telling difference. Hard's gallon is one number for every body — a 50 kg woman and a 100 kg man drink the same 3.8 litres. Medium's half-your-bodyweight-in-ounces formula lands a 150 lb person at about 2.2 litres and scales from there, which is the more defensible design of the two. The mechanics of actually hitting either target are on the water page.
Who should pick which
- Pick Hard if you are already training most days, the calendar is genuinely clear for eleven weeks, and what you want is the absolutism — the experience of a line that does not move. That is the product, by the program's own description.
- Pick Medium if you train already but your next eleven weeks contain real life — travel, a wedding, a deadline week. You keep the daily rhythm and lose the trapdoor.
- Pick neither if you are not training regularly yet: even one daily workout with no rest days is a large jump from zero. 75 Soft's weekly recovery day exists for physiological reasons, not comfort.
The catch on the Medium side
Medium's flexibility has a known failure mode: because nobody owns it, nobody defines it, and “90 percent” quietly becomes a feeling rather than a count. The fix is mechanical. Six tasks, a day is complete or it is not, and you track the misses — you have seven — on something visible. The printable tracker has Medium's rules pre-filled for exactly this reason. Held that way, Medium is not the soft option; it is Hard's structure with honest accounting. Held as a vibe, it is a wellness mood that ends in week three — and no comparison table was ever the problem.
Both still end on day 75 with nothing scheduled next — what the finish actually delivers, and what it does not, is its own honest page.