Breaking Muscle- Ye Shall be Judged

Hi,

Gwen Sisto Headshot, can you say cheekbones

I'm a judge for Breaking Muscle's annual TOP 10 blog contest, which you can read about right here.  You can even read my 100 word bio at the bottom of the article with my headshot; I call it "Benevolent Sisto Knows what's up" . 

Seriously...

I'm excited to be a judge because it will force me to read other people's work.  I am presently enjoying it, and I'm writing this as my rankings have been made.

Self reflections -- this blog

 Yes, surprisingly, I infrequently read fitness blogs.I'm reflecting on whether I should increase reading other blogs.

Here's why I infrequently read fitness blogs..
a)  I pride myself on having original content; when I read too many articles on fitness blogs, I find myself reacting to them, critiquing them, etc. I'm an engineer by trade; I trained to read articles like a scientist and dissect them, pull them a part, and scour them for the useful info. I don't write much about MIT on this blog... and this is where my MIT life meets fitness:   Hell, I took a PhD seminar at MIT on organizational science-- we read like 300+pages per week and had to write an essay reviewing one or two of the articles.  Also while at MIT, I took a stats class where we would read journal articles and use our bullshit-statistic-detectors to rip apart the articles (our professor almost always chose articles with bad stats on purpose).  So, I really feel I could write a blog just on critiquing other people's work, and most of my reviews would be assholish-snarky-engineer write-ups.  For the sake of good kharma, I try to only point out a really good read on here, occasionally.  And, writing a blog just on critiquing other people's work is not what I set out to do on this site.

b) What I set out to do....My goal is be a primary source of information-- at best a beacon of legit, scientific and ethnographic weightlifting information. And, because I do first hand research, and have been doing this for 20 years, I think its rather achievable.

c) The other reason I avoid serial reading fitness blogs is my own personal lifting focus. I have a really awesome coach, I've been doing this shit for 20 years, and I know what I have to work on. And believe me, most of what I need to work on, now, is mental ...and leg strength. My technical efficiency is world level, so the last thing I need to do is read an article on someone's theory of backsquat foot position to set my mind off in a tailspin.  It's about focus.  So, subjects I might read: pure meat-head squat strength gainz, holistic health,  or meditation. 

 

d) Finally, I  enjoy writing more than reading, and  I barely make time to write this blog.   Plus, I'm not the target audience of most blogs. So, I'm more likely to read a journal article. I do recognize that may be if I interacted with more bloggers that would increase my views, etc ,etc ...and  I only care about quality of  the content of this blog attracting readers , not social networking.

 

On the judging:

It is so interesting.  Some of the blogs are so different.  I could probably group them into 5 distinct genres.   I was torn on some entries.  One entry had almost encyclopedic cataloging of work outs and diets -- they were not my type of training and had way too many boob shots in the media, but I think for that blog's very specific target audience it was very good. 

 

I also found some blogs edged on the rant-y style of writing, others were positive vibe writing style, and a few were super neutral factual style.   I use all 3 and, purposely, limit rants (like my last rant on basic weightlifting history) because the world needs more peace and love.

 

Check back  to see the finalists of the www.breakingmuscle.com top 10 blog finalists.