Here at Fitness Drum, creating content that can be trusted is fundamental to everything we do… which is why, we’ve created this guide to help you understand how we go about our product reviews.

How We Got Here

We think product reviews can be really useful to help our readers understand which products and services are worthwhile, and which ones are perhaps worth avoiding.

We want to demonstrate what a product is like, highlighting both positive and negative aspects.

Since 2014, we’ve been getting our readers clued up on fitness apps, equipment and services as part of our mission to support those looking to get fitter and healthier.

To do this, we have made sure we use the products we review for a meaningful amount of time, so we have personal experience with them and therefore have unique insights worth sharing.

Each review always goes through a thorough internal vetting process to ensure it meets our editorial standards which doesn’t involve any input from the brands we might be mentioning.

We are then able to compare this to what other people have said about the product to understand if our experience was similar or different. This can then be used to support our research on brand claims, user feedback, alternatives, and opinions from others regarding the products, to create very comprehensive reviews that provide genuine value to someone researching a product or service.

Quantitative Scorecards

To go one step further, we want to ensure our readers have full transparency of the review process… which is why we’ve created Fitness Drum Scorecards for each product category.

This hopefully demonstrates why we might rate one product highly, compared to another.

These metrics are based on the most important factors that will likely influence the buying decision for specific types of products.

These product review metrics are unique to each category – fitness apps, fitness equipment and services for fitness professionals.

Below, we’ve provided some insights into how each product or service is evaluated and scored within each category.

Fitness Apps

This category is dedicated to any sort of fitness, workout, or exercise app.

We use the following scorecard to help provide some quantitative metrics to reference as we use and test them.

This helps us to stay focused on what users find most useful when using any sort of fitness app.

Fitness Equipment

This category is dedicated to any sort of fitness equipment, including cardio machines and strength training equipment.

Products in this category can range in price and function dramatically, but the core aspects of what make any sort of fitness equipment good, often boil down to a few key metrics, which are used in this scorecard.

Professionals

This category is dedicated to any sort of product or service that a fitness professional (such as a Personal Trainer or Physical Therapist) might use.

This could include gym management software or CEUs, for example.

This scorecard is geared towards what professionals and fitness businesses likely want to get out of any sort of investment in a product or service.

No Sponsored Placements

We also don’t offer brands the opportunity to “sponsor” their way into our content, or to influence how we discuss and talk about their product.

This ensures we stay true to our mission of going above and beyond when it comes to product reviews.

Frequent Updates

Products will often go through stages of change, and we ensure our product reviews reflect any major updates or changes to products we discuss.

Especially when it comes to apps, products can change quite dramatically in a short space of time.

We schedule in internal analysis for our product reviews every month and make updates as we think necessary.