Music’s Essential Rhythm During Exercise
The powerful bond of music and movement
Written by James Fox, Staff Writer
There’s no better feeling than marching into the gym, headphones on, as your song drains out the world. Launched into a different realm, the lyrics and notes are the wind that push you forward, ready to go to war with your body.
Music plays a pivotal role in exercise. From deciding which song to listen to while warming up, to selecting the perfect song for your personal record, to listening to something even after your workout — music has an effect on our movement.
Over the last four months, I have treated exercise as a space of essential therapeutic activity. While I played sports in high school and have maintained exercise in my weekly routine throughout college, I have recently discovered the magic that can happen when I choose the right type of music during exercise.
Through a combination of resistance training or weight lifting and running, I have been able to craft a sort of rhythm — no pun intended — with what music I like to listen to at carefully selected times during my exercise routine.
It has been fairly well known that music can benefit exercise activity. As seen in any public gym, most athletes, experienced and new, are wearing some sort of headphones.
What may be less known, however, is the importance and power of self-selected music during exercise.
Listening to the right self-preferred song can change several aspects of a workout, and many studies look at three main types of factors that can change a workout. These include psychological changes, physiological changes and psychophysiological changes.
Psychological changes include emotional and mental factors like affect, mood and subjective fatigue. Physiological changes are based on more physical attributes including oxygen uptake (VO2), cardiac output or blood flow, hormonal response and lactate clearance (Ballmann, 2021). Psychophysiological changes would include arousal, dissociation and autonomic control.
Studies have suggested that a primary mechanism of beneficial effects of preferred music is through modulation of attentional focus which allows for focus on the external stimuli of music over discomfort experienced during exhausting exercise (Ballmann, 2021).
In one study, participants completed repetitions to failure for bicep curl and knee extensor exercises while listening to preferred or no music. On average, participants listening to preferred music increased total repetitions by four reps, showing impressive increases in strength-endurance (Araújo, 2018).
Another study focused on bench press and used a linear position transducer to monitor barbell velocity and power output during the first three reps of the set. Researchers found that listening to preferred music resulted in increased velocity, power output, repetitions to failure and subjective motivation compared to non-preferred music (Araújo, 2018).
The shift in increased motivation with preferred music suggests that an essential factor of performance enhancement is extrinsic motivation which likely leads to greater effort, thereby improving explosive performance (Araújo, 2018).
In addition to scientific fact, I have experienced first hand the critical role music plays during exercise. When it comes to determining which music to play during exercise, it’s most important to remember that music choice is subjective. It depends on the person and personal music preferences, so the best results during exercise occur when music is based on self-selected preference.
I have personally found that different genres of music help my performance based on what kind of activity I am doing. This summer, I started running every day. While the activity became therapy for me, the music that I listened to helped paint my emotions into action.
Silencing everything around me, music provided the space for my mind to release everything it was thinking, and for my emotions to release themselves. I found that dance and edm music can be a good genre of music for running, with fast tempos and upbeat rhythms guiding my stride step by step.
Beyond genre, I discovered the magic of listening to music that holds personal emotional significance. In April, 2024, I unexpectedly lost my mother. Listening to music that makes me think of her does profound things to my exercise.
Sometimes, listening to her favorite band, Pearl Jam, evoke deep feelings of grief that drive me to keep running or find a couple extra reps — even sometimes through tears.
One may be able to relate if they were experiencing a breakup, listening to music that reminds them of that person could evoke a unique emotion that improves endurance or power during athletic performance.
These songs that connect me with my mom also inspire me to push forward, as my mind tells my body to keep running or push for a couple more reps during a strength training exercise. They grab and pull deep emotions that help fuel my exercise, and it creates a very productive and cathartic ritual.
Experiencing some kind of emotional attachment to a song — whether generally positive, negative or something else — is something remarkably special, and uniquely human. These feelings shouldn’t be ignored or suppressed, but felt and processed to the core of our soul, especially during a personal activity like exercise. After all, these emotions help make us who we are, and in this life, there is only one you.
Sources:
Ballmann, G. (2021). The Influence of Music Preference on Exercise Responses and Performance: A Review. National Library of Medicine.
Araújo, M. (2018). Music ergogenic effect on strength performance: randomized clinical test. Manual Therapy, Posturology & Rehabilitation Journal.