Brunel researchers have found that a personal play list can boost your workout performance by up to 20%!
Its all to do with regulating your heart beat and being in the flow. According to the researchers although it has been widely recognised that music can have an impact on our performance. Sporting stars have been using it for years. Dr Karageorghiss work goes further to explain and not only provides a scientific explanation for the phenomenon, it also reveals that each of us need to build our own personal playlists and use the one that suits the type of workout were doing for best effect.
In particular, the research from Dr Karageorghis shows that:
- Music can narrow attention and divert your mind from sensations of fatigue
- Music can be used as a form of stimulant prior to training (loud, upbeat music) or as a sedative to calm feelings of anxiety or nervousness (soft, slow music)
- Synchronising work rates to music increases performance levels. Music tempo regulates movement and thus prolongs performance
- Music can enhance the acquisition of motor skills and create a better environment in which to learn new skills.
Its no secret that music inspires superior performance. Just as the association between a first love and your song can be very strong, so is the relationship between music and sporting performance levels. The sound of Swing Low Sweet Chariot reverberating around a rugby stadium is an example of how music can provide great inspiration and instil pride in the players, says Dr Karageorghis of Brunel Universitys School of Sport and Education.
What does the science say?
There is a relationship between music preference and heart rate which is the key to capitalizing the psychological benefits behind this study. The research shows that fast tempo music is favoured for intense workouts like running, rowing, or aerobics with a max heart rate of 75% and slower music for recovery sessions, stretching and Pilates where the heart rate is slower
However, our recent research shows that theres no definitive playlist for todays gym goers or tomorrows sporting heroes. Songs are particular to an individual they are not prescriptive.
So its up to the individual to select songs that drive them and inspire them. To maximise performance levels, aligning high and low tempo music to your training programme as appropriate can be very effective listen to up-tempo music at times of high intensity and low-tempo during recovery times.
I have recently used this technique with my own athletes for a tough weekly circuit training session and the upshot was an 18 per cent improvement in adherence, says Dr. Costas Karageorghis.
It has been advised by Dr Karageoghis that fitness centers and gyms should shape the music to their clientele, by providing music for all users and perhaps then finding a way to tailor music to the individual for specific activities.
For example clients using the running machines would listen to fast tempos music, while those who are weight training are benefited by mid tempo music with inspirational lyrics.
In short, it is better to offer personal players to some of the clientele that is suited to their workout and have the music piped to the whole center turned down so that those using personal player can move to their own beat.
Being in the Flow
Like any athlete there is a place were everything just works during exercise of any kind. This is called being in the flow, when youre in the flow time is said to stand still, pain is numbed and you forget how tired you probably are.
Music is great for helping to create the flow state, Mihaly Csiksentmihaly the author of, Flow, The Psychology of Optimal Experience identifies the following as accompanying an experience of flow:
- Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities).
- Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it)
- A loss of the feeling of self consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
- Distorted sense of time, one's subjective experience of time is altered.
- Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
- Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
- A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
- The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging (Cskszentmihlyi, 1975. p.72).
Not all are needed for flow to be experienced.
Roy Palmer suggests that "being in the zone" may also influence movement patterns as better integration of the conscious and subconscious reflex functions improves coordination. Many athletes describe the effortless nature of their performance whilst achieving personal bests - see references.
The legendary soccer player Pele described his experience of being in the zone: "I felt a strange calmness.. . a kind of euphoria. I felt I could run all day without tiring, that I could dribble through any of their team or all of them, that I could almost pass through them physically." Another example was given by Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna who during qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix said he felt like he was driving the car beyond his limits. "I was already on pole, [...] and I just kept going. Suddenly I was nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my team mate with the same car. And suddenly I realized that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension. It was like I was in a tunnel. Not only the tunnel under the hotel but the whole circuit was a tunnel. I was just going and going, more and more and more and more. I was way over the limit but still able to find even more."
Listening to music helps us to create this flow experience, therefore we work harder and longer and enjoy it.
So get your fitness center into the groove and workout to music or better yet create several playlists for different types of music and take your personal player with you whenever you work out.
