Robin Young 
Buying home gym equipment can be a daunting task.
With so many options, features, stats, and conflicting information, making a choice can be hard.
We developed the Savvy Score to simplify matters.
Table of Contents
What is the Savvy Score?
My name’s Robin Young. I am the CEO of Fitness Savvy.
I developed the Savvy Score as the most trustworthy score to consider when buying gym equipment and supplements.
The Savvy Score is a rating out of 10.
It appears on most products on the Fitness Savvy websites and determines how good an item is.
Users can compare product features side by side using our dynamic comparison.
These helpful dynamic comparison tables also include the Savvy Score. It allows users to quickly and easily decide which option is best.
A Dynamic Comparison Example
Here is a link to the rowing machine dynamic table referenced above. You can add or remove products from this table or start your own from scratch.
How is the Savvy Score Calculated?
Three elements combine to calculate the Savvy Score:
- Physical testing of the product.
- Customer ratings and reviews.
- Product stats and features based on price.
Physical Product Testing
Wherever possible, I test products.
Due to the size and price of some items (high-end treadmills, for example), it’s impossible to test every product myself.
During testing, I correlate the advertised and actual product features. I also compare my experience with other customers’ feedback.
The idea here is to exterminate any discrepancies and validate opinions.
Some review sites state that receiving free items doesn’t affect their review. I disagree: even if at a sub-conscious level, they are influenced at every stage of the review process.
For this reason, I don’t accept freebies in exchange for product reviews.
Cheaper items like protein shakes are easier for me to test and review.
I’ve tasted and reviewed many protein powders over the years.
In addition to tasting and rating their macro profiles, I run experiments over several months, tracking the results.
My Best Protein Shakes Guide is likely the most optimal because it goes further than rating flavours and stating nutritional facts (both of which are still important).
Below is an example of a video from the Fitness Savvy YouTube Channel, which shows my transformation while using the shake I rated best.
Customer Ratings & Reviews
Customer reviews are subjective reports of people’s product experience.
They can provide large-scale insight, making them an important Savvy Score component.
We identify as many customer reviews for a product as we can. We combine these scores, weeding out ones which don’t seem right.
For example, we’ve encountered hundreds of 1-star reviews where the company or delivery is the issue – not the product.
We exclude such reviews as they distort the product rating.
Likewise, if we notice a 5-star rating but the reviewer says how bad the product is, we take this as a mistake and adjust accordingly.
Product Stats & Features
Technical products such as treadmills and exercise bikes come with many features.
As you should expect, the features improve as you spend more money.
We benchmark products at different price points.
A £500 treadmill won’t include all the bells and whistles of a £2,000 machine – but is it still good value?
By benchmarking, we understand what should be expected at a given price.
For treadmills, we consider the following:
- Running deck size
- Maximum user weight
- Top speed
- Incline percentage
- Whether it includes a decline option
- Motor power
- Warranty
- Other features, such as fans and speakers
We score each area out of 10 and then apply a multiplier based on price. For example, anything under £500 is multiplied by 1.5, whereas a £3,000 treadmill’s score is multiplied by 1.
Finally, we combine the customer score with ours to get the final Savvy Score.
Final Words
This short guide was created to help users better understand how we rate products.
We believe the Savvy Score to be the best representation of product quality.
Please comment below if you have any questions on the Savvy Score or recommendations for improvements. We’ll consider all suggestions during our next scoring update.
