Big Business & Fitness Magazines....Too Little Too Late

I've been on the road quite a bit and so frequent visits to the airport knick knack shops are the norm. Since I am in THE business, I always take a look at the current issues of popular fitness magazines. Now, unless I am imagining it, nearly every big budget magazine takes a crack at a fitness theme every 3-months or so. Rags for women like Vogue (the Shape Issue), Allure (Look Younger Now), Fitness (De-Jelly Your Belly) sure exploit the idea of getting a better body yet deliver everything you want to know about fitness that won't help you one bit. No doubt the programs are easy, so you feel good, and of course the magazine looks great on your coffee tableif you need that kind of validation from your friends? If so you might want to rethink you reasons for getting a better body, and if you're still serious read on....

Much like the popular women's magazines, for Men we have such fashionable staples like GQ, Esquire, Men's Vogue, and even Maxim who feature UFC fighters and athletes in an attempt to grab a slice of the wanna bee male exercise consumer set. Nice ploy to grab more readers, although the mens fashion rags dont try this as often as their female counterparts, they stiill can't resist trying to make a guy who is looking for a new watch do broomstick twists?

some of the magazine in question are on the bubble (as in not soooo bad). In this category we have high gloss magazines like Men's Health, Best Life, Self and Shape vying for the ever so fickle fringe exercisers. Dont get me wrong, the not so bad magazines have some decent information, but compared to the big promises they make on their covers (like Lose Your Gut in Two Weeks), they fall extremely short. Once again the fitness promise (and selling the never gonna stick to it guys like the Uncle Rico's of the world) is a front for big budget magazines to get the big ad dollars from multi-page layouts for clothing and cologne. in my experience these magazines are only for people who want to amuse themselves with the idea of following a real exercise program that gets results.

So whats my point? Well if you're looking to get into better shape, let me give you a few clues as to which magazines might be good for you. First you need to do a little test. That is for each magazine youre thumbing through count the amount of ad pages for NON-FITNESS related products. These items include cosmetics, clothes, shoes, booze, beer, cigars, cologne and watches to name a few. Then go over to an enthusiast magazine, like Surfer for duh, Surfers or Hot Rod Magazine for Gear Heads and count the ads for NON-Surfers or NON-Gear Heads? Get the point? Sure you do. The point is, if youre serious about a particular interest the best place to get information is the same place the most fanatical consumers do, and they dont read magazines about their favorite subject that is clouded by products they can read about in a dozen other titles.

For getting in shape the fanatics still go for Muscle and Fitness, FLEX, Oxygen, Fitness Rx, Ironman, REPS and Muscular Development. Now if youre more advanced youre out here on the web getting your advice from real people who have the SAME goals as you do. The moral of the story is; big advertisers (NON-Fitness related) will never spend much money in the real serious fitness magazines. On the other hand you can bet the serious fitness information will never be found in a magazine that cares more about living the good life than working to get a better body. One more reason, you should subscribe to my blog! You can bet on it, the information that can help you understand how to finally get healthy and fit will be found right here...

Peace