Deez Interviews: Meet the fitness editor who’s balancing “work” workouts with his Muay Thai practice, and also thinking about how to interrogate masculinity nbd!!
Happy Friday, Deezers! Today’s interview is with Brett Williams, an editor at Men’s Health who takes us through his typical day (prepare to feel bad about your half-assed YouTube yoga sesh INSTANTLY), gives tips on when to tell if your typical Joe Crossfit Schmoe is just Instagram b.s., and explains how he combined his love for football and writing into one dream job. Enjoy!
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The interviewee: Brett Williams (follow him @bdwilliams910)
The gig: Associate fitness editor at Men’s Health
So when I was doing my research on you, I was struck by the fact that you're a former pro football player AND you've also been a writer all your life. Can you talk about how those passions feed into each other?
For a long time growing up, I felt like there was a split in terms of my personality and interests, with a pretty stark separation between the athletic and intellectual/artsy aspects. I was one of those obnoxious kids who wanted to be reading books way beyond my grade level, but I lived to be outside running around and playing sports, too.
I started football at 7, which is right around when I started reading chapter books, and of course that meant that I was envisioning what types of stories I could come up with once I decided to write them down. College was really where those two passions converged, though. I was recruited to play football at a DIII school with a strong English program, and I'm not deluded enough to know that football is probably the only reason I was able to get in, given my grades in non-humanities courses and good-not-great test scores. I took school and learning how to write more seriously than I might have otherwise, and I knew I had football to thank for the opportunities I got there. Part of my senior thesis project was a short story about a football coach, so it wrapped up full circle.
When I played pro football abroad in Germany, my main goal for the time off the field was to develop my writing skills and to get a start on some fiction projects. I didn't get much done on the latter goal, but I achieved the former by keeping a blog that progressed from near-unreadable to decent over the months. When I was applying for media jobs, that blog was one of my first writing samples, and the unique background of having played pro football abroad definitely got me some points in the interview process.
Now, I'm interested in covering the sport however I can in my writing, from concussions to labor issues to social stories about players like Colin Kaepernick and Tim Tebow. Football is such a rich subject, from so many angles — given half a chance, I'll try to convince anyone about my "football is America" theory.
It seems like your role at Men's Health — is the perfect combination of those passions. How did you end up here?
It's sometimes surreal to step back and realize how perfectly this position is suited to my interests (seriously, that’s something that everyone in media should do at least once a week, if that's the case with your role).
I never thought or imagined what it’d be like to be a fitness editor. I was a tech reporter before this, and I fell into my current position by pure luck. I was running Popular Mechanics' Snapchat Discover channel, then my position was eliminated and I was laid off (third time in 2 years! Media is fun!). Thankfully, Hearst had just acquired MH from Rodale (RIP), and my PM manager recommended me to the site director.
What does an average weekday look like for you? I'm curious about how much of your own fitness routine is like, for ~you~ and how much of it is for research/work.
This is where it gets a bit hazy. I found out early in my professional life (after football) that I need to have some sort of exercise regimen, or I'm miserable. So even when I was working in tech, and especially during layoffs, I'd be in the gym lifting at least 3 to 4 days a week and running a few miles a week. I started training in Muay Thai in 2017, and I like to get at least 4 or 5 days of that a week, too. So now, I try to balance all that with "work" workouts, which I'd count as the stuff I go to that are sponsored by brands, typically 1 per week.
To do my job well, I feel like I need to be in the gym constantly testing new techniques and gear and keeping up the practice so my service content stays sharp. I'm not required to be there, but I don't want to miss it.
So a normal busy day: wake up at 5:45 a.m. to get up to Columbus Circle to lift in the Hearst gym by 7:10ish. My work at MH is mostly on the digital side, and content never sleeps, so we're starting the day around 9 a.m. I like to get in slightly before that to plan the day, then it's work til 6 p.m. Quick break to commute home, then it's Muay Thai at 8:30 pm until around 10.
I cook every night, so dinner is later, usually done around 11 or 11:30 if I'm slow. Then go to sleep and do it again. I don't double up weight room and Muay Thai every day — probably more like twice a week. Weekends are dedicated to Muay Thai and runs. I try to train in some capacity every day, but that's not so much required for work as it is to satisfy my own compulsive needs.
What role do you think outlets like Men's Health play in today’s media landscape, when lifestyle/health/fitness "content" is being taken over by influencers?
ISocial media has been an incredible tool for the fitness world, particularly Instagram, but that has brought even more bad actors and hucksters into the space. One of my goals at MH is to provide safe, actionable service journalism — so that means everything from workouts in the magazine to quick posts showing off moves and tips on our brand Instagram.
Our fitness director is a real stickler on smart, safe programming, and we'd never recommend any workout plans we wouldn't do ourselves. We specifically avoid highlighting trainers who just do cool stuff to flex on the ‘gram. Our audience should always have a level of trust because we're coming from the expert's perspective, so we source from notable certified trainers, and I actually am in the process of obtaining the highest level of cert you can get as a coach (the CSCS) just to have that authority.
The easiest way to tell if a fitfluencer (yes, we use that term, I've been writing a feature on this actually) is peddling B.S. is to look at their non-workout posts. Are they doing nothing but shilling gear and posting selfies? Are they more focused on "lifestyle" posts? Most importantly, do they actually work with clients in real life? If the only training they do is their own and with virtual clients, they might not be the best source of info.
But that's just part of the editorial mission. I also want people to think of MH as a place to read thoughtful pieces on gym and fitness culture, along with interrogations of the types of masculinity that inhabit these spaces. We've put out some good stuff in that vein, but I'm really hoping to pick up the pace on more of that type of thing in the very near future.
Finally, what's a recent article or piece that you're proud of publishing recently, and why?
This piece Are You Cut, Ripped, Jacked, or Swole was a fun play on some of the gym nomenclature we throw around all the time. It's funny, because it came from conversations where we would discuss which body type descriptor fit best for certain people we were writing about, and we would have arguments about it until we set down definitions. That's a great tip for anyone writing about any type of culture: if you can have a conversation about it, there's a piece there.
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Plz let us know if you are the jacked or swole type, follow Brett on Twitter @bdwilliams910 and Instagram asap, and have a great weekend!