Workout songs

There are two things that are key to long-term exercise motivation:  variance, so you don’t become bored, and music.

I really enjoy working out, be it a power walk, a gentle jog, sprint training, or probably my favourite type of exercise, a hardcore workout DVD.  Nine times out of ten what gets me through a workout and makes me push that little bit harder, is a really motivating playlist on my iPod.  The right music can change a really boring, hard-slog workout into one of my favourites!   Studies in recent years have shown that listening to music whilst exercising can have a huge impact on the mind.  It has been proven that listening to music can not only help improve results through motivating you and distracting you from your fatigue, but also aid lung function and make you smarter!  I think we’d all like that!  One major finding of a study carried out by Dr Costas Karageorghis at Brunel University’s School of Sport and Education was that listening to music whilst exercising could increase the exerciser’s positivity, even when they are working out at maximum capacity, close to physical exhaustion.  In addition, the study also found that an exerciser’s endurance could be enhanced by up to 15%, if they listened to music during their workout.

In another study carried out by Brunel University in 2005, 36 runners cut an average of half a second off their 400m times when they listened to music with a certain number of beats per minute (BPM).  A track with a strong BPM is fabulous at helping you sustain a rhythmic pace.  What often happens is you start out too fast; listening to music can help you control your pace.  Think about matching your run/workout to tracks with corresponding BPM.  For example, at the beginning, when you’re warming-up you want a track or two of around 115 to 118BPM, building to 135-140BPM and going up to around 170 – 180BPM at the peak of your workout, with slower tracks as you cool down.

There are a couple of ways to find out the BPM of songs:

1. If you keep your music in iTunes, click on View, View Options and check the Beats Per Minute box.  You’ll then see the BPM in the far right hand column.  Whether iTunes holds this information will depend upon how you bought your music.
2. You can manually check the BPM of your songs.  I used BPM Assistant to check the BPM of the songs below, but there are many others out there.  If you use a PC, BPM Checker is a good one to try.  You literally just tap along to the beat and the app tells you the BPM.
3. Once you’ve determined the BPM, you need to add the info to the song in iTunes.  Right click on the song in iTunes, click Get Info, and enter the correct BPM.

So, here are ten of my current favourite songs that are in my workout playlist. Look out next month, when I’ll be sharing some more.