Offering a wealth of knowledge on the male fitness scene
By Katie Garner
At first glance, you can see why Fitness Bean is defined as a men’s fitness blog. All sleek lines and block fonts, you won’t find a fancy frill in sight, but despite the clear labelling and styling clearly targeting a male audience, I found this blog on the whole to be very accessible for all fitness fans and I couldn’t help but be impressed by the interesting array of article titles as I scrolled through the aptly labelled sections.
There are four main sub-sections on site: health, muscle, fitness and nutrition. I found the fitness section the most entertaining and I loved the variety and mix of the pieces. The majority are advice pieces, the author clearly a fitness fanatic armed with all the know-how on achieving a buff bod, dishing out pearls of wisdom on topics such as slotting diet and exercise into a packed student schedule and accessories to aid your work out. Despite being advice pieces, there is no hint of belittling or talking down to readers, which is refreshingly lovely to see. The tone of the pieces are very much one pal to another, sharing tips that work and produce effective results.
The muscle section includes lots of ‘how to’ style pieces that all centre around helping readers develop and bulk up their bodies, so this area is definitely more one for the men. The health section on the other hand is much broader in topics, so women should check this one out too, especially the articles that cover staying healthy over heavy holiday seasons and getting the ideal combination of sleep to exercise. The nutrition section is also a handy one to look over, explaining the benefits of various food groups or ingredients, as well as discussing foods that boost energy or explaining what the ideal bedtime snack is.
The world of male fitness however wouldn’t be complete without at least some discussion on supplements, and Fitness Bean also talks about these bad boys in detail, as there are a whole host of reviews around them, following the assumption that all men want a heaving and chiselled Adonis-style muscle mass. As a female reader, I just glossed over anything that dealt with supplements, but that didn’t leave me with a sparse library of choice by any means. Flicking through the site, I was intrigued by many of the pieces and clicked on quite a few for a further read.
The writing is stylistically simple and easy to digest without any linguistic flourishes, providing a very clear and direct voice that breaks down the whole arena of fitness into bite sized chunks of information, offering clear opinions, viewpoints and advice based on personal experience. An interesting read no matter what sex you are, although men would definitely benefit more from the know how pieces.