Can listening to music increase your performance?
Want to go further with your workout in the new year? Then music could be the answer.
Top athletes use music to enhance their performance, and researchers are now studying this phenomenon to understand how to harness its power.
We spoke with Dr Costas Karageorghis, a leading sports psychologist from Brunel University in London, about how to maximise the beneficial effects of music for your workout. Costas even made his own ultimate workout playlist on Deezer to get you started. Now there’s no excuse.
So can music really help us in the gym?
Our research demonstrates that music can be a tremendous supplement to exercise. For maximum impact the tempo and rhythmic pattern need to be targeted towards your movement rate and activity pattern. Music can benefit exercise particularly at low-to-moderate intensities. It is less effective at high exercise intensities, like during sprint cycling, because our brain struggles to process the sound.
Does different music work for particular types of exercise?
Weight lifting: Music that is fast, rhythmic, percussive or bass-driven is particularly good for psyching yourself up before a highly strenuous activity like lifting heavy weights.
Sprinting: You need faster music for when you are training at a high intensity. Dance music of 130-140 bpm is ideal for very intense exercise.
Jogging, rowing, cycling: Our recent research has shown that the tempo range 125-140 bpm is ideal across the broad spectrum of exercise intensities when an individual makes no conscious effort to synchronise their movements to the rhythm (asynchronous). A playlist should ideally contour your expected heart rate during a workout. If you are synchronising your movements with the music, the beats per minute need to match your intended movement rate, so it’s important to determine what this is likely to be and to select music accordingly.
What should we look for in a good workout playlist?
The music should possess a pleasing melody and harmony which improves your mood, typically in a major key. Music which promotes inspiring imagery or has strong personal associations can also be highly effective.
The musical rhythm (beat) should make you want to move; as well as having lyrics that contain positive affirmations of exercise such as "work your body", "push it" or "run to the beat".
Dr Costas Karageorghis has coached professional athletes and is the author of Inside Sport Psychology, a guide to strengthening mind and body for enhanced performance.
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