Music And Exercise – A Great Pair

Music and exercise go hand in hand, so to speak, which means that the combination can be a lot of fun. Some forms of exercise, such as dancing, are well known, but others go unnoticed because they are applied in specific situations.

So today’s article is about one of the latter. More precisely, the effect of music on your physical performance. A group of scientists, led by Peter Terry, conducted a study that took into account information spanning more than a century.

The study on the benefits of music on exercise was conducted by Terry, of the University of Southern Queensland, in Australia, along with Professor Costas Karageorghis and his team.

Their conclusions were recently included in an article entitled Effects of music in exercise and sport: a meta-analytical review . It shares compelling evidence about the benefits of music in facilitating exercise and making any form of exercise more enjoyable.

The study of music and exercise

Peter Terry, along with Costas Karageorghis and their respective teams, analyzed 139 available studies on the subject. They ran from 1911 to 2017, so they cover more than a century. The aim was to provide a complete and reliable summary of the benefits of music for exercise.

Moving while listening to music makes this activity easier and more enjoyable. Based on a very large sample of data from thousands of participants, the researchers determined that music primarily provides physiological benefits. Second, music has an “ergogenic” effect. In other words, it improves performance. There are other benefits.

1. Music and exercise – a positive mood

One of the researchers’ findings is that music increases your good mood during physical activity. This is because it has a dissociative effect by helping a person forget their current situation. In this way they evoke relevant and important situations from their past or their dreams for the future.

This happens when you listen to music from your personal playlists. In other words, it’s not enough just to have access to a song. In fact, you can see the effect especially when someone hears the songs from their personal preferences for some reason.

2. Music increases physical performance

The improvement in physical performance is what scientists know as the “ergogenic effect.” It corresponds to the spontaneous increase in your activity. For example, if you normally do thirty abdominal exercises, you can do more with the same perception of effort while listening to music.

This is especially true for repetitive aerobic exercise. The effect occurs when the activity is tuned to the rhythm of a song. The researchers point out that music can be a good reference for maintaining a constant rhythm.

3. Music and exercise – reduced perceived exertion

Another interesting benefit of music is that it changes the perception of the effort you are putting in. In other words, it helps you feel that the exercise is less difficult and strenuous. This means that the feeling of sacrifice or pain is significantly reduced when you exercise.

In other studies conducted at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland, researchers found that, in general, lively and danceable rhythms reduce the sensation of perceived exertion. However, that effect has everything to do with people’s personal experiences.

4. It improves physiological efficiency

Terry and Karageorghis found that physiological efficiency increases when you exercise while listening to music. This means that there is an optimization in the use of your oxygen. Thus, the activity increases blood flow, but decreases the amount of oxygen needed to compensate for that increase.

Everything indicates that the cheerful mood, added to the rocking of your body while listening to the different rhythms, makes your breathing more harmonious. That’s why you improve your breathing. You end up feeling tired only later.

Finally, it is true that music has a very interesting effect on your brain. The remarkable thing is that with this study you can see to what extent this effect can help you to perform activities that basically feel like heavy. So music is a great ally to get more out of your exercise routines.