Can Music Affect Your Workouts? One Study Says Yes.
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.
One was about female track runners who were able to do extremely well by reciting the abc’s in their heads while they ran. The second was that while playing video games, people were able to keep their hand in freezing cold water for a longer period of time because they were completely focused on the video game. So there’s definitely something to be said about music helping you push through more pain.
Saving Music For Days Where You Really Have No Motivation…
While I enjoy listening to music while I workout, I don’t like to always have to listen to music. Sometimes I just want to be 100% aware of my surroundings and totally into what I’m doing without outside stimuli. What works best for me is only listening to music when I’m low on motivation and need that extra boost for my workouts and that might work well for you as well.
What’s Your Favorite Workout Music?
In my opinion, the article from MSNBC where they quote the study does a terrible job at naming workout music at the end. I mean seriously, how can Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” not be mentioned on a list for workout music? I know you guys can do better than them, so leave a comment and share your favorite workout music!
September 9th, 2009 at 4:19 am
Hi Rafi! I agree totally! I do exercise longer with music. You know there was this Oprah show once where Dr Oz said that music actually decreases the intensity of the workout. I was a little surprised. I think you need the right kind of music if you want to work out hard. I have a very varied range of music from western to Indian that I work out to.
September 9th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Sangita – That’s pretty interesting that Dr. Oz said that. And yeah, you definitely need the right kind of music to get the best benefit and it’s really cool how diverse the music is that you listen to!
-Rafi
September 9th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
A little “Rage Against the Machine” makes my kempo/kickboxing routines a little more fun.
September 10th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Dan,
You beat me to the punch. Rage is awesome for workouts. Dr. Oz said what? I’d like to see the study that led him to that conclusion? Highly doubt it. Good post!
Mike
September 10th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Dan – That would do it!
Mike – Thanks.
-Rafi