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How to Break Into Fitness Journalism (with Andrew Gutman)

Written by David Tao
Last updated on August 10th, 2023

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Today I’m talking to Andrew Gutman, BarBend’s Editor-in-Chief, a veteran of numerous fitness publications. We’re giving you tips and tricks on how to network your way into this industry, whether you want to contribute as a writer, editor, videographer, designer, you name it. We cover some of our best insights into how to get involved with outlets like BarBend (and maybe even some of our esteemed competitors in the fitness journalism space).

Andrew Gutman joins the BarBend Podcast to talk about fitness journalism

On this episode of The BarBend Podcast, host David Tao talks to Andrew Gutman about:

  • Andrew’s educational background and how he first broke into fitness journalism (1:50)
  • Do you need to go to journalism school to write for sites like BarBend? (3:40)
  • The best and and worst advice Andrew received early in his journalism career (5:47)
  • Andrew’s crazy journey covering strongwoman in Alaska (11:30)
  • The fitness journalists who inspire Andrew (including Michael Easter) (17:30)
  • “Assume the reader knows nothing,” and why pull-ups are a great example of this (21:30)
  • How to successfully pitch BarBend (and other outlets) with your writing ideas (23:00)

Relevant links and further reading:

 

Transcription

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

I really do think the best thing that happened to me, in my career, was getting laid off from “Muscle & Fitness,” and having that year and a half to freelance.

 

I was able to write about topics that I otherwise would never have written about. I wrote for “Business Insider,” I wrote for “Men’s Journal.” I wrote for all of these publications that I otherwise would not have had access to if I wasn’t forced to put my nose to the grindstone and reach out.

David TaoDavid Tao

Welcome to the “BarBend Podcast,” where we talk to the smartest athletes, coaches, and minds from around the world of strength. I’m your host, David Thomas Tao. This podcast is presented by BarBends.com.

 

Today, we have a special conversation for you. Call it, “Insider Tips to Fitness Journalism.” I’m talking to BarBend’s Editor-in-Chief, Andrew Gutman, a veteran of numerous fitness-and-strength-sports-based publications.

 

We are giving you tips and tricks on how to network your way into this industry, whether you want to contribute as a writer, a videographer, or a photographer, you name it. We cover some of our best learnings about how to get involved with outlets like “BarBend” and even some of our competitors, some of our esteemed competitors in the fitness journalism space. Hope you enjoy.

 

One of my favorite people to talk to on a daily basis because we work together and it’s a real treat to have him back on the BarBend Podcast, Andrew, thanks for joining us. Today, we’re talking about breaking into fitness journalism and strength journalism.

 

You have quite the journey yourself on that. If you don’t mind, give us a bit of the cliff notes of your career rundown.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

Yeah, totally. First, David, always happy to be on the BarBend Podcast. I love chatting with you. I started at Springfield College going for strength and conditioning, but then transitioned to journalism, sports journalism and communication.

 

I don’t like sports. I don’t like baseball. I don’t like football. I don’t know what I’m doing or what I’m going to cover.

David TaoDavid Tao

You sound like a lot of fun at parties, is what you sound like.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

 [laughs] Everybody in my major is why, you don’t follow the paths. I also went to school in Massachusetts. It was like, “What are you doing?” I took an Internet journalism class where we all had to start our own websites.

 

I started a blog, a fitness blog. My adviser was like, “Oh, we actually have an alum who works at Muscle & Fitness magazine so maybe you’d like to intern there.” I was like, “Yes.” Interned there, that turned into a job.

 

Once I graduated, I was at Muscle & Fitness magazine for about four years, then I freelanced a bit after the company was sold and I was let go. I worked for Insider Health, Men’s Health, Men’s Journal. Different broader health and fitness publications like that, and then I found my way to BarBend. That’s been the journey thus far.

David TaoDavid Tao

We can talk a little bit more about this later. Your journey at BarBend has been also very cool for me to personally be a small part of because you’ve gotten promoted a couple times. You’re clearly doing something that those BarBend folks like in bringing strength sports coverage to the masses.

 

I’m a little biased there, obviously, but that journey I would call it fairly stereotypical for the old-school method of breaking into journalism. Go to school, either do an activity or extracurricular or study something that’s like hyper-relevant to wanting to go into journalism, then get an internship and hope that leads to a job.

 

Is that a path that you think is very viable for folks who want to break into fitness journalism these days in 2022?

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

Yeah. It’s a good question. I would say for what we specifically do, I don’t think you need to go down that typical route. If you want to be a wartime reporter, or maybe want to work for “The New York Times” and do deep investigative journalism, I think a degree in journalism from a solid school is a must-have.

 

There’s a lot of nuance to covering those topics and there’s a lot of nuance for what we do too. What I mean to say is, times have changed big time, even in the last 10 years. If you have a cell phone and a recorder and even an interest in something like strength sports, you can really just start a YouTube channel and cover it yourself, and really make a career out of it.

 

David, a lot of where we get our information is YouTube and Instagram — two social channels. People who have such an interest that they’ve developed relationships with these athletes, they go over. Matt Rhodes, who was just on the podcast, I think is a great example. I don’t know what his background is, a full disclosure. I actually haven’t yet listened to the podcast.

David TaoDavid Tao

Oh, come on. You’re killing me here, Andrew.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

[laughs] I know. I haven’t yet listened to it. It’s on my list. The [inaudible 5:10] one was the last one I listened to. That was some ear candy, for sure. My point is, you can just go online, start a YouTube channel, and give the results and information that people need. You become a source as long as you get enough information right.

David TaoDavid Tao

Let’s talk a little bit about going back to your career path. What was some advice that you might have gotten along the way that was good and what’s some advice that you got along the way in your journalism career that hindsight was really bad?

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

Good advice. The first thing that sticks out to me the late editor-in-chief of Muscle & Fitness Shawn Perine told me, and I don’t know if this really pertains specifically to journalism. He was like, “Always, always, always be transparent with everybody about everything.” That stuck out to me. I try my best to be as transparent with everybody.

 

In terms of like, oh God, bad advice, that’s a more fun question. I’m trying to think.

David TaoDavid Tao

 I’ll start off while you’re thinking. My advice, I was told by my first ever boss in my journalism career at my first professional writing gig out of college, I was told that you should always stay with the blue chip.

 

You should always stay with the established publication and the startup realm was no place for journalist or anyone interested in media. This is like, to date myself, the pre-buzz feed days. The pre-YouTube influencer days.

 

He sat me down at his desk and he said, “David, I know you’re probably interested in exploring startups and maybe starting your own thing.” This is years and years and years before BarBend.

 

He said, “That’s a bad idea. If you want to be a journalist, stick with the established publications because that’s where you’re going to make your mark and there’s no reason to go out there and try and build a new audience because it’s not going to happen.”

 

It’s not like BarBend is competing against “New York Times” necessarily, maybe on some terms we are, right? I sit here well over a decade later and just think about how wrong he was because I’m so happy doing what I do today.

 

It’s because I was able, as a group of founders, to go out and start something new and take that leap because BarBend didn’t even exist as a concept when he was telling me that.

 

He’s also super successful and has done fine with his life since then, but I look back and I think, “What terrible advice. I’m so glad I didn’t listen to a damn thing he said that day.”

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

Everybody exists in a vacuum. If he found success on that route, he probably thinks, so why would anybody go a different route? God, this is not even remotely as deep as that, but I had a teacher one time tell me, “Never write a sentence longer than 12 words, which just doesn’t seem correct, right?”

David TaoDavid Tao

Actually, I’m going to go check at every piece of BarBend content you’ve ever edited to make sure there are no sentences longer than 12 words.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

He is rolling around somewhere reading BarBend.com. He’s like, “He didn’t listen to me at all.”

David TaoDavid Tao

The weird advice I got on syntax or grammar or whatever it was, was in high school. I had a teacher who I really liked tell me, “Never start two sentences in the same paragraphs with the same word,” which is a bunch of baloney, but actually something that I held near and dear well into my adult life and career as a writer.

 

I actually think it probably did help my writing because it makes it sound less repetitive. I had it in my mind that that was a rule. That was hard and fast rule just like you have to use punctuation at the end of a sentence.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

I don’t hate that though. That’s exactly when I’m editing a piece, if I see the same sentence that starts with the same word in the same paragraph, it just sticks out and I’m very quick to change that. Not totally anti that rule, but definitely not a rule.

David TaoDavid Tao

Well, it could be. You control BarBend style guide. What are some weird rules or rules of thumb that you’ve instituted for BarBend’s writers? It might not exist anywhere else.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

This is very specific to fitness. We will write as you know like AP style and for those who are listening, [inaudible 9:44] know AP style as one of the standard grammatical bibles that anyone has a career in journalism or writing follows.

 

AP style dictates that you spell out any number less than 10 and then you write numerically 10 and above. We stick with that, but then if we write article workout chart, we’ll do all numerals, so that leaves us in confusion. Other than that, I don’t know, man. I think that’s probably the most weird one I can think of.

David TaoDavid Tao

I’ve got a little bit off track and I’m sure we could dive in on a lot of more weird things that are strength-sports specific, like style guides at the “Washington Post” aren’t necessarily going to have kilogram to pounds conversions when it comes to power lifting meets. We have our rules for that.

 

Let’s talk a little bit about a point in your journalism career that I know we’ve chatted about before over lunch or a stiff drink, and that’s traveling to events. I know that’s something that’s a big deal for every journalist, especially a sports journalist, the first time you’re on assignment to go travel.

 

I’m not sure if this was your first ever travel assignment when you were working for Muscle & Fitness, but you had a trip that I know is very near and dear to your heart to Alaska…

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

Oh, yeah.

David TaoDavid Tao

…To cover a strength competition in Alaska. I don’t want to say more because I don’t want to paraphrase. Tell us how that came about. Tell us how a young glint-in-his-eye journalist Andrew navigated that.

 

Because I think it’s a really telling story for the fact that in strength-sports journalism, sometimes you’re put in situations, especially covering events where you just have to MacGyver things together a little bit.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

Yeah. This is a really good cautionary tale too, for how to deal with autonomy. Because I was at a point in my career where I was not, like right now, as the Editor-in-Chief of BarBend, I’m given a fair amount of autonomy. I dictate what goes up on the site and stuff like that.

David TaoDavid Tao

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don’t know. I’m kidding. I’m kidding. You have a ton of autonomy.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

At this point in my career, I was still an associate editor. I was very used to other people stopping me from doing things if it wasn’t the right move. For some reason, nobody stopped me from going to Alaska. What happened was this, met a guy at an expo, won’t say which one.

 

He was like, “Hey, I live in Alaska. I run a gym out there. We’re having a big competition. I hear you’re into strongman. You should come out and I’ll get you in front of Bill Kazmaier. You can cover the show, we’ll train strongman. I’ll rally a few of the competitors to maybe walk you through some events.” I was like, “Oh, that’s great.”

 

I go to my boss and I’m like, “Well, it seems like we can get a lot of content out of this. We’ll get event coverage. We’ll get interviews with maybe Bill Kazmaier. We’ll get technique tips on how to lift Atlas Stones and hoist slogs and all of this.” My boss was like, “Great. Book the trip and go get it done.”

 

I booked the travel to Alaska and I get there and this guy pretty much had nothing set up in terms of I didn’t have one workout with anyone of note. Bill Kazmaier, never saw him. I…

 

[crosstalk]

David TaoDavid Tao

Wait. Was he there, at all?

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

No, not even close. I don’t even know if he was in Alaska. It was just such a weird, weird lie. Then we get to the event and I found out the guy who got me out there, for reasons unbeknown to me, was not allowed to be at the event. He was actually kicked out.

 

He was like, “I’ll drop you off and I’ll go handle it. I’ll come back and get you in like eight hours.” I’m like, “What?” Anyway, the event was, “The Strongest Woman in the World.” I think this was 2018. Jessica Fithen, a friend of BarBend, she won the event. It was a really cool event. I was just running around with my cell phone, taking Instagram photos, and writing up scorecards.

 

That part went pretty well. Then I get back and my boss was like, “Hey, what did you do out?” He’s like, “That trip was so much money. What did you do?” I was like, “Honestly, not much.” That was not good. Everything was fine, but it could have gone a lot better.

David TaoDavid Tao

Let’s talk a little bit about that event. Were you the only journalist there?

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

Yeah, it was like at a state fair in Alaska. It was at the Anchorage state fair. There were about 17 people watching and there were, God, maybe 10 competitors. It was a well-run event though. It was very quick. The events were cool. They had a fish toss, they had axle deadlift for reps. They had a really cool loading medley. They had a sled pole where they pulled a loaded toboggan sled.

 

The event was stellar. That was held by Strongman Corp, I think owned by Dione Masters. First time meeting her. She’s cool. Yeah, it was a really well-run event just in hindsight. Not something that I would probably spend thousands of dollars of company money to cover in person.

David TaoDavid Tao

 

Is this you pitching me an approval to go to next year’s iteration of this?

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

That experience has made it so I fear pitching travel to anybody.

 

I don’t think I’ve yet to pitch you to travel at all because I’m like, “It’s just going to be useless. It’s going to work out to be nothing.”

David TaoDavid Tao

One thing that event is famous for is the fish toss where competitors had to toss a rubber salmon. It weighed like 50 pounds or 55 pounds.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

55 pounds.

David TaoDavid Tao

Yeah. They had to toss it for distance, but like a certain way. They couldn’t toss it…You had to toss it underhand or something..?

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

 

No, you have to hold it almost like front rack.

David TaoDavid Tao

 

Oh, OK.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

In that position and then you have to launch it forward.

David TaoDavid Tao

 

Kind of like putting a shot. You couldn’t swing it like a hammer toss?

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

 

No. You can’t toss it back overhead either.

David TaoDavid Tao

 

One thing I…

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

 

People thought it was a real fish on Instagram. We reposted that.

David TaoDavid Tao

 

That’s the thing.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

 

People were like, “Oh my God, that’s terrible.” It’s not a real fish.

David TaoDavid Tao

I love that when we posted a story about that on Instagram, that first off, even though we said in the caption, it was not a real fish, people just didn’t read that. We were accused of perpetuating animal cruelty, which frankly was the first in BarBend history.

 

My other favorite thing about that was there were people on the thread who said, “I read the caption, but I can tell that’s a real fish. I’m an expert in wildlife. That’s not a rubber fish.” We had to ask the competitors who were at the event to come in onto the thread and verify that it was indeed a fake salmon.

 

Great moments in strength-sports journalism, right there. Great moments.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

Yeah. It’s funny that you went the extra mile to be like, “Hey, can you just verify it’s a fake fish?” Also, how many times do you think you could toss like a real salmon and it would…

David TaoDavid Tao

Yeah, I think it would go splat and then you’d have lunch. You know what I mean? Hopefully. You’d have to pick a pit of the gravel out of it if you tossed it in the parking lot, which I think they were doing.

 

Let’s talk a little bit about other folks in fitness journalism, doesn’t have to be strength-sports journalism. Fitness journalism, who have inspired you along your journey. That could be people that you’ve interacted with personally and you know them and have that relationship, or it could be someone you’ve never interacted with, you just admire what they’re doing in the space.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

When I originally was in school, I was a big fan of long-form features. I took a lot of classes on long-form feature writing. Two people, two names that come to mind. My original, in Muscle & Fitness, is a Springfield College alum. His name is Matt Tuthill.

 

He now works for Robert Irvine, Chef Robert Irvine, the celebrity chef. He’s his VP of content. He, in my opinion, is one of the greatest feature writers at Muscle & Fitness who’s worked at Muscle & Fitness. He’s just got a beautiful way with words and can spin a story.

 

He actually wrote a feature on Janae Kroc when Janae originally came out. It was a great story. That actually ended up winning an award. I have a lot of respect for Matt as a writer and as a journalist.

 

The second person that comes to mind, and somebody who I believe has been on the podcast is Michael Easter, who works for…

David TaoDavid Tao

 

Oh, yeah, Michael’s been. He was a lot of fun to interview.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

He was on the podcast. He works predominantly with “Men’s Health.” Again, just a really great writer. I love how he’s able to write in long-form features that are in the health and fitness space, but aren’t necessarily just about health and fitness, if that makes sense.

 

He wrote that article on the CrossFit games, about Dave Castro and Eric Rosa, when they were still an item. Before Dave was like…

David TaoDavid Tao

 

But they’re still going steady, yeah.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

When they were still an item. It’s about CrossFit, but it’s also not about CrossFit. I have a lot of respect for those two as writers.

David TaoDavid Tao

Amazing. What are some of the misconceptions that or I guess you could…we’ll call it misconceptions, misunderstandings, or even bad habits, that you see new writers in the space come in with?

 

For folks at home, Andrew has worked with dozens and dozens and dozens of BarBend full-time writers and contributors at this point. We have a pretty big team of both in-house full timers and part timers, contributors from all around the world. One of Andrew’s main jobs these days is to shepherd their onboarding and get them jumpstarted writing for BarBend, whether it’s someone we seek out or whether it’s someone who approaches us.

 

What are some misunderstandings or misconceptions or things that you have to train out of folks when they start writing for us? To be fair, we have our own style, we have our own guidelines, we have our own structures, but in a general sense, I know it’s a big question.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

Yeah, it is a big question. It also varies person to person, like people have different habits, different styles. I would say one thing that I’ve noticed a lot and we’re all guilty of this sometimes is not explaining the why behind something.

 

I say that specifically because BarBend writes a lot of service content, articles on training and nutrition that are supposed to be serviceable to the reader and you’ll get folks, you write something and you’ll make a claim and then you assume that the reader knows what you’re talking about, but you have to assume the reader knows nothing.

 

Actually go back to that question you asked earlier, David, what’s a really good piece of advice you got? That transparency line from Sean Perrin stuck with me, but more specific to journalism. My old deputy editor wrote a sticky note. Put it up on the wall, “Assume the reader knows nothing.” It’s like a great piece of advice because you’re trying to educate, you’re trying to guide.

 

If you write something like, I don’t know what’s, I can’t think of an example right now. Like the pull up builds back thickness, right? If you leave it at that, you leave a lot to be desired. It’s almost more distracting to not explain what you mean and just leave it there because it’s like why and how.

 

The why and the how, I would say that, that is something I see a lot of new writers glossing over explained the why and the how.

David TaoDavid Tao

I’m glad that he posted that up on the wall because I feel like editors I’ve had in the past have wanted to post that on my forehead so that I have to, but like backwards so that it’s all I can see in my line of vision just covering my eyes because that’s a trap I fall into all the time constantly in my writing is not giving context.

 

The thing is, strength sports, you can go so deep down the rabbit hole and you can get so specific. It’s very easy to lose the forest through the trees there. What are some pieces of advice you give? OK, I’m opening up a can of worms with this next question.

 

We get so much inbound from folks who are interested in writing for BarBend and, frankly, it’s so much that we can’t…not only do we not say yes to everyone, we can’t even respond to everyone for all the inbound writing inquiries we get because we get so many every day, but all that said, if you were to give some pieces of advice, maybe two or three pieces of advice to someone who might want to write for BarBend, what might those be?

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

 First thing first. If you approached any publication, I would say, come with pitches. At the end of the day, it’s like transactional. You want to provide a writing service. If you come at the table with ideas, that’s a huge green flag. Do people say that, green flag?

David TaoDavid Tao

 

Green light. It’s a green light.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

 

The green light. [laughs] It’s a huge plus. Come at the table with some ideas and keep the pitches concise like just the headline. Like, this is what you get, this is the crust of the story. Come with ideas. Two, I’d say be responsive, be communicative. Make sure that you respond to emails in a timely manner.

David TaoDavid Tao

I love what you say about come with pitches and one thing I want to just pull out and extrapolate from that, you said, “Keep the pitches concise.” If you’re pitching any outlet, it could be BarBend, it could be anyone and you want to write for them, pitch headlines.

 

Don’t pitch a long paragraph about generally meandering thoughts about what the article is going to be about. Pitch a sample headline. Not to say that that headline is going to be the final headline.

 

That’s going to be up to a conversation between the writer and the editor really, but let us see it on the page. Let us imagine it on the page. Don’t say, “I want to write about strongman. The thing I want to write about strongman is kind of this, kind of this, kind of this,” because that signals to an editor that you don’t really know where this pitch is going to end up or where this article is going to end or what it’s actually going to accomplish. Pitch headlines.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

 

You should be able to understand what the entire story will be about from the headline. You don’t have to have every single detail hashed out, but you should have the angle, as we call it, hashed out in the headline.

David TaoDavid Tao

 

If you can’t do that, the pitch is going to meander and the editor is going to probably end up with word soup and no one wants that. That’s a big red flag or a red light for every editor.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

 

[laughs] It’s a good self-editing tool too. I do that too before I pitch something. I’ll write out all of my ideas and then I try and consolidate them into eight-word headlines or something like that. Then you know if you can get a catchy punchy title and that make sense, it’s a good idea. It’s probably a good idea.

David TaoDavid Tao

Any other advice for folks who might want to break into fitness journalism?

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

 

I would say it’s all about networking. I really do think it’s about networking, who you know.

David TaoDavid Tao

 

Who can vouch for you?

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

Yeah. You establish a relationship with somebody and then you do good work and then that person knows somebody. Really, it’s all about networking. At least that’s how I have been able to jump from job to job.

 

Full disclosure, even when I applied for BarBend, Eb Samuel [inaudible 26:16] vouched for me. That’s somebody I know who I worked with who vouched for me. It is about who you know.

David TaoDavid Tao

 

Eb said he vouched for you?

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

 

He’s just like thinking about a red light.

David TaoDavid Tao

 

I was joking. Actually, he had a lot of lovely things to say, as someone who is intimately involved in my interview process, he had a lot of lovely things to say, but what if he had no. Eb is a great guy. He thinks well of you, so obviously that’s fine.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

Here’s the deal. If you want to write for a publication and you think you have a good idea, organize your ideas and then reach out. Find somebody at LinkedIn. I would suggest actually not going for the big fish, like a Business Insider. Probably don’t reach out to their CEO.

 

You’re probably not going to hear back or their executive editor even. Try and find like a staff writer or like an associate editor. Somebody who checks their inbox and checks their LinkedIn.

 

Get your ideas in front of that person and just keep hammering until you get a yes. You will eventually. Somebody will get back to you. Somebody will appreciate the hustle and once you get a name, just keep pitching, keep grinding away.

 

It’s all about reputation in this game. You need the feedback. You need the edits. You need the experience. Just keep doing that and then, eventually, the doors will open. Honestly, I do think the best thing that happened to me in my career was getting laid off from Muscle & Fitness and having that year and half to freelance.

 

I really do believe that. I was able to write about topics that I otherwise would never have written about. For example, I did a profile on a hot dog vendor for the Oakland A’s. Never, never would I have done that, write for Men’s Health.

 

I wrote for Business Insider. I wrote for Men’s Journal. I wrote for all these publications that I otherwise would not have had access to if I wasn’t forced to put my nose to the grindstone and reach out.

 

All that to say, just reach out. The worst thing that can happen is you don’t hear back.

David TaoDavid Tao

Be prepared for that. That’s not necessarily a mark against you. It’s just people are busy. We don’t respond to every inquiry we get at BarBend. It’s the same for a lot of other publications. It can be frustrating. Silence can be frustrating, but it isn’t necessarily a mark against you if you don’t hear back from someone.

 

Keep refining. Keep asking for career advice. Keep networking. Keep pounding the pavement.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

What about you, David? You have any specific advice on that front?

David TaoDavid Tao

Yeah. I would forward all those inquiries to Andrew Gutman is what I would do. I said this. I can see Andrew. He took a sip of water as I said that, so that was a bit of a cruel joke for me to make. Ultimately, I would echo what you said.

 

Understand that every major outlet in fitness journalism and in health journalism these days gets pitched a ton because there are more people who want to write than can actually produce the content, than that now it’s like us have capacity for.

 

Make our jobs easy. Make it impossible for us to say no to your pitch, or to your pitches, because you’re coming with great ideas, content we need on our site. Really sell it. Make it really easy for us. Don’t make us do the work to say yes. Make saying yes so easy that we can’t refuse you as a writer.

 

You do that enough times. You do that consistently enough. You’re going to build relationships and find some amazing writing opportunities in the space. That, I truly believe.

 

Andrew, I appreciate the conversation. I appreciate you giving folks some thoughts and advice for how they can maybe break into the space, whether it’s full time or some they’re passionate about getting involved in a part-time capacity.

 

Where’s the best place for people to follow along with you? Obviously, BarBend.com to see your work and your awesome team’s work. Personally, where can folks follow along with you?

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

 

The only place I’m somewhat active is Instagram. andrew_gutman on Instagram. BarBend.com, that’s where I want you to go. Find me there.

David TaoDavid Tao

Breakingmuscle.com…

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

 

Breakingmuscle.com. That’s right.

David TaoDavid Tao

 …which has a new, awesome team behind it. If you haven’t visited breakingmuscle.com in a while, check it out because there’s a lot of awesome, new content recently started going up on that site as well, another BarBend Property.

 

Andrew, thanks so much for joining me. Always a pleasure.

Andrew GutmanAndrew Gutman

 

No problem.

About David Tao

BarBend's Co-Founder and CEO, David is a veteran of the health & fitness industry, with nearly a decade of experience building and running editorial teams in the space. He also serves as a color commentator for both National and International weightlifting competitions, many through USA Weightlifting.

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