Full on: how music affects your workouts

The role of music during training was first thought about back in 1911. At that time, American scientist Leonard Ayres found out that cyclists rode faster when music was playing and slower in complete silence. Today, no one is surprised to find headphones in the gym, and music services offer separate playlists for each sport to suit every taste. Let’s find out how favorite tracks affect the brain, whether music really increases the effectiveness of training and what genres are most often chosen for different types of exercise. Andrei Semeshov, wellness coach and “Championship” expert, helps us with this.

Can music increase the effectiveness of training?

Sometimes it can be difficult to sit still when your favorite song is playing in the speaker or headphones. Some people immediately start swaying to the beat or beating the rhythm with their fingers, while others start dancing. There is a very real explanation for this. The fact is that in the human brain there are direct connections between auditory and motor neurons. Listening to music you like stimulates areas of the brain that play an important role in coordinating movements. Some researchers believe that people’s instinctive desire to move to the beat is related to this “neural interference.”

Dr. Marcelo Bigliassi of the University of São Paulo in Brazil has long studied the relationship between audiovisual stimuli and physical fitness during exercise. He concluded that listening to music promotes a positive state of mind, reduces feelings of fatigue and increases exercise efficiency. Dr. Bigliassi also believes that the brain can downplay feelings of tension. Under the influence of music, it changes the nerve impulses sent to the working muscles and blocks negative bodily signals.

In this way, music sort of competes with the overload impulses sent by the body and makes them recede into the background. Thanks to the right playlist you won’t get less tired in the gym, but the encouraging tunes of your favorite artist will definitely help you forget about fatigue – at least for a while.

Despite the results of Bigliassi’s research, many athletes and trainers prefer not to be distracted by music and work out in silence.

Andrei: Music is more about sometimes allowing you to go beyond your current physical capabilities, for example. For example, powerful hard rock literally forces you to squeeze one more repetition out of yourself through “can’t”. The secret is to leave the music as the “last cartridge”. That is, not to insert headphones at every regular strength training session, but to take them out of the bag only on special occasions.

Musical energy boosting is not a joke or a myth. Research on the role of music during short-distance races confirms this. Researchers from Brazil and Spain have found that favorite songs help runners get in the mood for the distance and withstand the strain more easily. The American Association of Track & Field (USATF) practically equates music to a separate type of doping and since 2009 allows the use of players only during amateur marathons, which do not provide awards.

In 1998, athlete Haile Gebreselassie from Ethiopia explained his 2000-meter record with music. According to him, one of the hits of the nineties – the song “Scatman” by John Scatman – helped him to accelerate. It was the song that Gebreselassie was humming during the race.

Does music have a negative effect on training?

Some researchers are of the opinion that music has a negative effect on workout performance. In their opinion, a person cannot fully concentrate on any of the tasks. This is what sports sociologist Jim Denison believes. He is sure that headphones prevent concentration on running and deprive it of its meditative component. Denison also thinks that people gradually get used to a certain sound accompaniment so much that they can no longer train without music.

We’ve lost the ability to “be in the moment” in favor of multitasking. And listening to music or podcasts during a workout is one form of it: neither one or the other is done well.

Andrei: I can hardly imagine how you can combine working with a client and listening to music during personal training. If a person has turned to a trainer, it is logical, in my opinion, to be in constant communication with him during the sessions. I myself rarely take out my headphones during strength training, only once a year. When I really have no strength at all, but I need to push myself.

In addition, on the project website you can sort the tracks both by beat frequency and by the level of training of the athlete. For example, for beginner runners Podrunner offers this mix:

1. Giovanni Damico – Bernauer
2. SP – Storm
3. Lenny Barnes – Broken Glass (Instrumental Mix)
4. Lex Loofah – Super Cali
5. Robien M – Autumn Rain
6. Soulboy – The Connection