The Importance of Music When Working Out

You will know that our mission is to empower you to achieve your aesthetic, fitness and health goals and we’ll leave no stone unturned in investigating ways to help you on your journey. So, within this blog, we aim to highlight why you should tune in to tone up! 

Before you commit to changing your workout mantra to, ‘in Pod we trust’, let’s start with the growing amount of research that shows women and men, of all ages, respond similarly to music and that it can improve workout performance in the following ways: 

Enhanced mental awareness – results from the role of music in helping you to psyche yourself up. 

Improved co-ordination – is related to the fact that working with rhythm improves your motor skills. 

Reduced feelings of fatigue – due to your focus of attention being directed to the music rather than the sensations associated with getting tired. 

Fact: The choice of music tempo can impact the magnitude of the above effects with a soundtrack that starts slow and then gets faster leading to higher workloads being achieved in an exercise session. 

Tip: When compiling your own workout playlist, take note of the tempos and place them in order of ascending beats per minute. 

 Fact: In an experiment that specifically tested strength, there was no surprise to learn that the more energetic music (at more than 130 beats per minute) produced the best results. 

Tip: If you generally listen to whole albums, then, you might want to skip over any slow tracks or they might sabotage your workout rhythm. 

Fact: An important factor is extra musical association, whereby we identify certain experiences which can then help to create a positive frame of mind.  

Tip: Listen carefully to lyrics and make sure your playlist includes songs with empowering messages, even if they might not be heart-pumpingly fast.  

Fact: Music accompaniment increases foot speed, stride length and step  symmetry leading to an overall improvement in performance. This is because percussive auditory cues positively impact gait proprioception... in other words, stepping to a fixed beat improves co-ordination in the lower limbs. 

Tip: Choosing songs that match your pace can lead to you improving your rhythmic movement and so lead to a new personal best.  

Fact: In a test, the blood vessels of exercisers listening to tracks they didn’t like constricted by 6% resulting in a decrease in performance of around 10%. Conversely, those who tuned into their fave songs were noted to experience an expansion of 26% in their blood vessels, resulting in a 34% improvement in their efforts.