heavy going

Idioms  

1. Also, heavy weather.

2. Difficult, as in Tom found calculus heavy going , or It's going to be heavy weather for us from here on . The first expression originally referred to a road or path that was hard to negotiate; the variant alludes to bad weather at sea. [Mid-1800s]

3. make heavy weather of . Make hard work or a fuss over something, especially unnecessarily. For example, They made heavy weather of the differences between their proposals, which actually seemed much alike . This use of weather likens a commotion to a storm. [Mid-1900s]

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Example Sentences

On paper, it’s pretty heavy going.

From New York Times

Bjork’s 10th studio album can be heavy going.

From New York Times

Progress was heavy going, though, stalled by residents suspicious of the mayor's intentions who had fears of gentrification, being priced out and forced away.

From BBC

Some of the material in “The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails” is relatively heavy going.

From New York Times

But for someone who's in perpetual motion, who once professed "I'm either moving around, or I'm asleep", quarantine was heavy going.

From BBC