New site is UP at PassionateFitness.com!!!!!
A few things about the site -
It’s a community based fitness site meant to give total freedom to the users. You have a totally customizable profile, you can upload pictures, connect twitter updates to your profile, submit articles, use the forums, friend other users and more! It’s a really, really cool site and I will admit that I created something that I would really like to use too. 
I really, really enjoyed blogging here and I plan on continuing to post over at the new site, although the format is a little different. I have so much respect for every person who has commented and contributed here that I can probably recite every single commenters name from memory and even remember the comments!
I’m happy to say that The Fitness Adviser has really grown since June when I started the site. There’s a solid readership here and some awesome people who frequently comment. I honestly always looking forward to seeing what you guys have to say!
Because of this great response, I’ve decided to transform the site into something much greater, with a much bigger focus on the community instead of just a blog. I can’t go into it in detail right now, but the new site is going to be up within a few days and I’ll just tell you that you will be very impressed. The idea behind it is probably like no other fitness site that you’ve ever seen.
Anyway, that’s all for now and I’m looking forward to seeing all of you on the new site!
P.S. The Ten Dollar Store is going to be closed within the next couple of days. Sorry about the inconvenience.
Music is an amazing thing. It can make the mundane exciting, it affects your mood, it can make you dance, and occasionally give you a splitting headache. Just to show you how much of an affect music has on you, try watching a movie without the music one day and notice how an exciting montage becomes dull.
[Try watching this Rocky montage without sound and you'll see how big of an impact music has on movies.]
Now, a research study quoted by MSNBC has come out saying that music may be helpful to your workouts as well. Apparently, women who were listening to music during their workout were able to accomplish more repetitions before fatiguing than those who didn’t listen to music.
The Distraction Factor
Aside from getting your adrenaline pumping, music helps you workout harder because it distracts you from the pain of the workout. Interestingly, distraction plays a huge role in general in people’s pain tolerance. I remember distinctly reading about two studies on distraction increasing pain tolerance.
I’ve always been a fan of cross training for a few reasons. For one, I like the idea of being able to do multiple things and not just one and two, it always seemed more natural to do various activities instead of just doing one. It turns out that my like of cross training is well grounded, with this study on cyclists now coming out.
[Cycling is a great activity...but should be done in conjunction with other things as well.]
Basically, what the study says is that bone density in competitive cyclists is lower than a normal person. That means that the bones of these professional athletes that 100% concentrate on cycling are weaker than a normal person’s!
That means that while these guys might be amazing at racing the Tour de France, if you put a 50 pound pack on a cyclist and asked him to hike a mountain, he would, in my opinion, be at serious risk for a bone fracture. This of course, brings us to the point of this article:
Here’s the deal. Email me at rafi(@)thefitnessadviser(dot)com your name and your favorite workout meal. I’ll then post it on the site. Then we’ll have a vote on who has the most popular post workout meal. The winner will get a skype phone call from me personally (you have to have skype, I’ll email you for your skype information) where we can discuss anything from fitness to what you want to see on the site.
[Great news...you can win a skype phone call from me personally by joining the post workout meal contest!]
I know there are people who follow this site from all over the world, so I’m definitely looking forward to what you guys send. Submissions end on the 4th 10th so make sure to send in your favorite post workout meal as soon as possible (with a picture is preferable but not necessary). Good luck!