I’ve always been a bit precious about my workout music. I think it’s a combination of a deep love for music, and the fact that I’m not a natural athlete. True, I consider myself athletic, but man that’s been a very hard-earned label. It’s taken years to see myself that way, especially since as a kid my mile times often clocked in at 12 minutes, when a wheezing and nearly sick mini Stig would stumble across the finish line to a group of her bored, awaiting peers.
I firmly believe that the only reasons why I enjoy running nowadays are, in equal measure, my stubbornness and carefully selected workout music that makes me feel super.
In my mind, I’m part of a training montage. No, I AM the training montage. I’m killing hydras and hopping off the roofs of Agrabah. In real life, my face turns the color of a radish and I produce an alarming amount of sweat. It’s really quite cute (in the most childlike, least attractive sort of way).
It’s not just me – it’s probably you, too. There’s a lot of info out there indicating that this may just be part of being human.
The Studies
Me being me, I got curious about what about music makes working out better. And I found a great article from way back in 2013 from Scientific American that gave a beautiful summary of the workout-music-connection.
According to the article, there have been a number of studies on the effect of music on endurance and performance. There were two that I found notable, and which I may at some point casually bring up in a dinner party conversation (#BecauseImCool).
The first was a 1911 study by an American named Leonard Ayres, who found that cyclists pedaled faster if a band played alongside them. Isn’t that an image?
The second study was done in 2012, which upped the ante from a hundred years before by showing that cyclists who listened to music required 7% less oxygen than those without music to perform at the same level.
What the Heck is Going On?
So, yeah – there’s clearly something happening here. From what I could piece together, there are at least three different phenomena that make up the mind-music-body connection:
- Processing: Everything (like every. Single. Thing.) you taste, touch, smell, see, hear, regulate, feel, etc has to be processed by your brain. And trust me, as someone who’s had a hit to the head, all of these processes inform your perception of reality in a very real way. Adding music to the workload of your brain’s circuitry means that it has less bandwidth to process everything else. Including thoughts of oh God, I can’t do this, which are very conscious, and less conscious processes like measuring how fatigued you are. Smoke and mirrors, friends.
- The emotional element: music conjures emotion. Period. And it’s amazing how motivating emotion – especially positive emotion – can be. Try running to I Can Go the Distance from the animated Hercules movie and I dare you to not feel like you can, in fact, go the distance.
- “Neural Crosstalk” – the centers of your brain that handle music are all kinds of tangled with those that operate movement. I, for one, cannot sing Stop by the Spice Girls without hand gestures. It’s physically impossible. And while that song certainly merits dance moves, the instinct to move to music has more to do with the fact that your auditory neurons are CONNECTED TO your motor neurons and less to do with how spicy the Spice Girls really are.
Workout Music I Love
I hope you’re feeling as validated as I am at this point. I would rather use a stranger’s earbuds to work out than go without (thank you, YMCA lost and found; yes, I know I’m gross), and at least now I know that I have good reason.
I’ve been going on lots of runs with Sici out on the Oakland Hills trails this summer, and music has been so key in powering through the hills and the heat! I made a playlist that I LOVE on Spotify, and I’m sharing it here with you.
Summer Heat Playlist
This is my outdoor running mix. There are a lot of explicit tracks on this, so it’s not for tender ears, OK? Also, this mix is best played on shuffle.
30 Minute Run Playlist
When I’m running on a treadmill, I prefer to have my tracks in sync with the progression of my workout. I usually set the machine to hill mode for a half an hour at whatever level and speed I feel is the appropriate challenge.
So – this mix starts with songs to get you warmed up, then progresses to tunes that are solid enough to carry you when you feel like you’re going to fly off the back of the treadmill (this has happened to me IRL. It was hilarious. But don’t worry, it wasn’t to this mix). It ends with some cooldown tracks, for a total of 47 minutes (warm up + worrrrrrkkkkk + cooldown and stretch).
Play this thing in order – and again, there are explicit tracks here, just FYI:
What’s your fave workout music? Any specific artists or tracks that get you going?
love,
Stig
