How Music Makes Your Workout Better
Have you ever noticed how every one of your favorite workout classes are accompanied by an upbeat playlist? Or how marathoners prep for big runs with wireless earbuds in their ears? There’s a perfectly good reason for that: Music can transform how you feel about working out and what you get out of it. And if you’re trying to improve your health in 2021, music can truly help you get on the right path due to its motivating benefits.
Read on to discover the top five benefits of exercising with tunes.
5 Reasons to Exercise With Music
1. Music can increase your speed. Listening to an upbeat song can cause you to pick up your pace when you’re doing cardio, whether you’re running on a treadmill or biking on a trail. Even if you aren’t matching your movement exactly to the rhythm, research has discover that you’ll still go faster to more energetic music.
2. Music can make you more powerful.
The impact of music impacts more people than just “Cardio Bunnies”—it can also help with resistance work. Researches at the California State University at Fullerton discovered that people who listened to music while strength training were able to squat jump with more explosive force and speed than those who did the same movement in silence.
3. Music can make exercise feel easier. Whenever you exercise, your brain notices how difficult the activity feels—a concept called perceived rate of exertion. So, hard exercises like sprinting as fast as you can register as requiring more effort than low-impact workouts like walking. But some research has found that if music is playing, your workout will feel easier—even if you’re pushing yourself harder than usual. One theory is that your brain only has so much attention it can focus on, so if music is taking up some of your brainpower, you have less focus to devote on how tough your exercise feels to you.
4. Music can boost your mood.
Music doesn’t only make the workout easier, it can also make you find it more enjoyable. The best part is that is doesn't matter how fast or slow the music is- just blast your favorite tunes and and you’ll enjoy your workout so much more!
5. Music can keep you motivated.
If you feel like you’re ready to throw in the towel on working out altogether, music can help with keeping you on track with your daily workout. Jamming out to youe favorite song before your workout can put you in the right mindset and boost the likelihood of you actually doing it. And listening to music during your workout can help you stick with it week after week, too.
How to Choose the Best Workout Music
When putting together a playlist for your workout, consider the kind of exercise you’re doing that day. If it’s something where you want to move fast, like running, find a song that’s 155 to 180 beats per minute. Think “Runaway Baby” by Bruno Mars at 164 BPMs or “Can’t Hold Us” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis at 146 BPM. However, if you’re doing a relaxing yoga routine, play music with lower beats per minute. And if you want to be super sure that you’ve got the appropriate BPMs for the workout you’re doing, you can check each song online.
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