Most people, already know that music can augment our moods/feelings, even sometimes provide us with that extra oomph to get it done.
Music, has the following effects on the human body;
- Increases and decreases heart rate depending on the type of music and beats per minute.
- Increases and decreases blood pressure, based on music type
- aligns mental function with activity based on the rhythm and beat of music and physical activity.
Thats why dancing is very powerful when its done right, many dancers have felt a sense of euphoria when they are totally aligned with the music, science generally has difficulty understanding all that is going on when a dancer is in the moment.
My personal view, is that music acts as a psycophysiological catalyst, and when in sync with the bodies internal rhythms is greater then the sum of its individual parts.
Think of all the neuro chemicals that explode in your brain when the right track drops, the body starts moving and then boom, your in sync ripping it up, obviously this is omitting inhibitions that may prevent someone from letting go on the dance floor.
So how does this effect Excersise, well simple really, you want to align your activity to the music you are doing, and you will simply do it better and longer, and this will bring you better results.
Allot of the conflicting research that concludes that only in un trained individuals does music enhance performance, are ether contradicted by other studies or my sneaking suspicion is that the music is not matching the heart rate which would act against performance like a hand-break at full throttle doesn’t stop you but it certainly slows you down.
Finally i think we have found the crux of the argument of trained vs untrained performance while on music (yes music is a drug antagonist) trained athletes have a better heart rate variability which favours precise music matching to heart rate, as there heart rate ramps up slower and drops faster as there systems can handle more work before the heart has to go at its top rate.
Untrained athletes have a fast rising heart rate and a slow decline. Music fits in differently between the 2 types of athlete, music of about 135 beats in trained athletes will not support a all out sprint for very long, as the brain chemical storm wheres off and the beat simply is lower then the heart rate, which reduces trained athletic performance, simply a bad track for the track lol.
in untrained the music’s mismatch brings the heart rate down which increases the sustained output in the untrained athlete, and this is why the research on the net is so conflicting, because, when you look at results without factoring in the heart rate variability of the athletes you get bad results.
people who understand sport science will always tell you that the capacity to recover fast will outweigh raw output as time increases in the activity, recovery speed for a single 100m sprint is irrelevant, but if you also compete in several other events or the duration of each event is longer in duration then recovery is supreme, as consistency is key.
So next time you train think about what is your average heart rate for the activity and select music that matches the beat, this will ensure better performance.
A good resource for information or an iphone app is http://jog.fm/workout-songs remeber to know your heart rate before using music to enhance performance, you need a baseline for selection purposes.
Ignore any bpm recomendations for certain sports, as it doesnt work that way, your heart rate is the only thing you need to match to, this also means the fitter you get the music will change over time, so if you run at 160bpm for a 5k run, then thats what you need to ramp upto, invest in a good heart rate monitor, any that work with digifit for iphone is a good start, as this will show your heart rate as a graph throughout your workout, allowing you to create a playlist for warm up, performance and cool down, the main concept is targeting your average heart rate at each stage, where the the goal is to increase the performance rate, duration, a note to people that use a set speed like treadmills, as your fitness levels raises, the same speed will require a lower heart rate, when this happens pick up the speed and retune your music playlists for the new bpm and see the performance duration increase.
