Workout the rhythm

How music helps you perform

Dom Cadden

The benefits of exercising to music were explored as far back as 1911, when Leonard Eyres
found that cyclists pedalled faster while a band was playing than when the band was
silent/passed out. It was difficult to find saxophonists and drummers who could stay with the
peloton while playing, however, and strapping a wind-up gramophone to cycling tops never really
took off. As music-playing technology grew more compact, many more studies were done and
clear conclusions began to emerge. The world-leading researcher on music for performance, Dr.
Costas Karageorghis, who has authored over 100 studies, even refers to music as a type of
legal performance-enhancing drug.
The positive effects of music on exercise is a complex and multi-faceted topic, with no clear
single origin for the benefits. Several different types of brain-body connections occur when we
listen to music, and the most effective ways to use music can vary depending on the activity type
you do. Researchers have been able to more clearly demonstrate a positive performance effect
from music on steady-state cardio activity compared to sprints or short bursts of high intensity or
maximal effort activity. Its clear that power and sprint athletes still benefit from music, its just
harder to quantify because of the many varying and subjective factors.

How music helps

The rhythm response
This is a frequently-studied phenomenon where the body likes to move its respiration rate and
heartbeat roughly in time to the temp of the music its exposed to. Its not an exact science, but
the general tempo of the music can help you maintain a steady pace and increase
efficiency/decrease energy expenditure. Researchers often try to find the perfect beats per
minute (bpm) range for different activities, but of course this will vary with your environment,
fitness level, pace, etc. Some recommended ranges are:
Power walking 123-139 bpm
Running 147-190 bpm
Cycling 125-170 bpm
Triathletes I talk to also report having a few slower songs they can shuffle to on their iPod so they
can bring down their pace if they think theyre going too hard think Air Supply (true story!).
In some surveys, rap and hip-hop music come out as the most popular music genre to train to,
yet often its beat range is just 80-100 bpm. So how does that work? Researchers speculate that
people work on a double beat or synch their cadence (e.g. timing the beat to the right leg hitting
the ground running or pushing a pedal) but more importantly, it works well because the beat is
very prominent in the music.

Distraction
Music can distract you from biofeedback (pain, discomfort, etc.), and has been shown to lower
your perception of effort and trick your mind into feeling less tired. This disassociation effect
occurs most in moderate-intensity training at high intensity, your biofeedback is too loud. For a
study published in the Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology in 2008, Karageorghis and his
research team showed that music chosen based on tempo and other scientific principles,
enhanced endurance by 15 percent while boosting the "feeling states" of exercisers, helping
them to gain more pleasure from their workout routine.

Mood & Flow

Music helps to induce alpha brain wave activity a state known as 'flow'. Flow is a trance-like
state, where people feel completely immersed in what they are doing and it seems like the mind
and body are operating on autopilot. This is a great state for repeating actions with consistency.
Its like what coaches and athletes often refer to this as being in the zone.

Excitation
Get hyped, get psyched, rev yourself up with music. Music is very commonly used this way pre-
event or pre-activity in sprint or maximal effort activities such as athletic field events and strength
sports, but also in combat sports (think boxers coming out to the ring). These types of activities
rely on a state of excitation to perform at your best. Music used this way may not have a steady
tempo, but might instead build in intensity and/or speed as the song progresses, e.g. AC/DCs
Thunderstruck (134 bpm).

Motivational significance
Karageorghis says that songs with lyrics that reference physical movement, can help an athletes
brain form muscle memories. For example, the song Jump either by Van Halen (130 bpm) or
Kriss Kross (102 bpm) might help a long jumper or a basketball or netball player. The song helps
the brain to back up the physical goal. Lyrics can also act as mantras, adjusting your attitude. For
example, a song like Eminems Lose Yourself (171 bpm) might remind an athlete remain in the
moment and stay focussed on all the reasons they put in so much effort.

Muscle memory / cues

This is an effect thats very relevant for highly technical and coordinated activities, as opposed to
a uniform and repetitive action such as endurance running/cycling/swimming action. These more
complex actions often require ticking off a whole checklist of technical factors or a sequence of
actions and doing something you did in training. If your brain associates one song with a
successful activity you did in training, then playing that song before you do the same action in
competition can help your body coordinate the sequence of actions you need to do. (See Me and
the Music, below)

Cool off tension for skills precision

Researchers at Stanford University found that specific pieces of music typically at a slower
tempo could enhance concentration or promote relaxation. This relaxation can have the effect
of balancing and adjusting movement, especially for those precision sports actions where nerves
and muscle tension can make you fluff that free throw, goof up on the green or stuff up that
second serve. This sedating music can especially help with pre-competition anxiety and nerves.

Mood & hormones

This is where all the research into the pattern and speed of beat goes out the window. If Celine
Dion or Jeff Buckleys Hallelujah just makes you feel really good, then the lab boffins can chuck
away their clipboards. One studyi showed that participants who listened to music they deemed
pleasing had higher levels of the brain hormone serotonin (the feel-good hormone), which
can put you in a better mood for your training. However, if you combine this with fast tempo,
the brain lights up like a Christmas tree, according to Karageorghis, with stimuli reaching parts
of the brain not easily reached. These include parts of the brain that control movement and
coordination. The combined effect is that music boosts confidence, motivates, and causes
positive thoughts, all of which allows you to train harder. Add a faster tempo and you can trick the
body into moving faster.

Me and the music from ultra-endurance to strength sports and back again
Powerlifting and trail ultramarathons have very different demands both mentally and physically,
so its no surprise that different points above apply to the use of music for each sport.
In powerlifting, other athletes would use music in headphones to block out all distractions and
focus prior to a competition lift. Music pre-event can also act as a cue. In powerlifting, each lift is
over in a couple seconds, but there is a whole checklist of things to go through to get your
technique (including body positioning and tension) perfect so you can be at your best. When you
have a song that you associate with a great max lift in training, using the same song before a
competition lift can help your brain associate with the sequence.
In training, music before lifting helps lift my level of excitation its hard to lift a very heavy weight
if youre feeling flat or distracted. Between sets, I try to fully relax, then rev myself up to maximum
intensity for a lift, which is where the music revs me up. The more aggressive the music, the
better. While Im lifting, I actually have zero awareness of the music. I think this is why some
studies on the effect of music on high-intensity anaerobic activity show little or no effect its
because the effect occurs before the actual activity, not during it. When lifting, the only purpose
of the music serves is to drown out my grunting and pleas to Jesus.
I now always do my weekday running training to music. I do not consciously synch my body to
the music, but it is interesting that many songs on my playlist are around 160 bpm (e.g. Foo
Fighters All My Life 168 bpm) which is around my average heart rate for these sessions.
There are many rap songs on my playlist with a very prominent, but much slower beat. However,
take one example Ice Cubes It was a Good Day (I train a lot around Mosman, so I actually
rarely need to carry my AK-47) its 82 bpm, which fits the double-beat theory. I feel the tempo
drives me to try to be a little bit faster, even if I never actually get in synch with the beat. Above
all, the music helps me get in a distracted state on courses that Ive done many times before - I
risk getting bored and listening to my body whingeing too much. Music alleviates this.
For weekend bush running and races, I wont listen to music because I have all this extra stimuli
to keep me engaged, plus I feel I need my sense of hearing too much for other factors not just
noises, but for balance. There are exceptions. Last year in one race I found myself all alone in
the dark, struggling to find the track on a 3300m mountain. Im scared of heights (yeah I
know), so I used music to calm myself / give me confidence and distract myself from the hairy
drop-offs. I was prepared, with a hitlist of motivational significance Run by Night, Vertigo, King
of the Mountain, 100 Miles and Running, Lose Yourself and just a hint of piss-taking to cheer
me up. For safety, I took out the earbuds closer to the peak when I needed more awareness to
balance and navigate along the rock faces and narrow trail I wasnt ready for funeral music!

TRIVIA:
Ski-ba-bop with the best
What song did Haile Gebrselassie, one of the greatest distance runners in history, synch his
stride when breaking the 10,000 metre world record?
Scatman (136 bpm)

Look up your fave training songs here see if there is a BPM range that they have in
common, then use that to guide what songs you add to your playlists.
https://songbpm.com/

i
Altenmller, E., & Schlaug, G. (2012). Music, brain, and health: Exploring biological foundations of musics health
effects. In R. A. R. MacDonald, G. Kreutz, & L. Mitchell (Eds.), Music, health, and wellbeing, 12-24. New York: Oxford
University Press.