Exercise Music 101

Do you ever listen to music when you exercise? If you do, what factors do you think about when you choose your exercise music? You probably pick music you like, as well as music you find motivating. But what kind of music do researchers say you should pick? They definitely agree that you should listen to enjoyable music that encourages you to move, but they also have discovered some more specific guidelines for selecting music that will give you the best possible workout experience.

According to prominent music and exercise researcher Dr. Costas Karageorghis, four aspects of music impact its ability to motivate people to exercise. Listed in order of importance, these characteristics are rhythm response, musicality, cultural impact, and association.[i] If you consider these factors when choosing your exercise music, you can achieve a myriad of physical and psychological benefits, including greater endurance, decreased awareness of fatigue, and increased enjoyment of the exercise experience.[ii]

The most important factor, rhythm response, involves the beat pattern and tempo of a particular piece of music. Rhythm response primarily results from the relationship between a piece’s beats per minute (BPM) and an exerciser’s heart rate or rate of motion.[iii] Since rhythm response matters so much in music selection, Musical Living will dedicate an entire blog post just to the topic of BPM. Check back next week for this more in-depth discussion on rhythm and exercise music!

Musicality consists of non-rhythmic musical elements, such as melody, harmony, timbre, dynamics, and style.[iv] When thinking about musicality, pick songs with characteristics that will help you reach your exercise goals. For example, if you want to energize yourself it’s hard to go wrong with music featuring a chorus of loud instruments playing to a driving beat.[v] Something like Leonard Bernstein’s “Mambo” from West Side Story fits this description. The use of powerful brass and persistent percussion urges you to move. You don’t necessarily need boisterous percussion and brass to increase your energy, though, as you can observe when you listen to the “Flying Theme” from John Williams’ score to E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. I wouldn’t describe the Flying Theme as edgy or percussive, but the soaring melody in the strings still conveys a sense of excitement and movement. Use pieces like these with different energizing musical characteristics to keep yourself from getting bored with your music during a workout.

The third and fourth aspects of Karageorghis’ exercise music selection hierarchy, cultural impact and association, do not matter as much as the previous two but can still influence your exercise experience. Cultural impact is defined as the prevalence of a song or type of music among members of a society, and association deals with the images and memories that certain songs elicit.[vi] To inspire yourself throughout an exercise session, you can listen to pieces that instinctively make you think about physical activity. These pieces might be from television or movies, like the main theme from Rocky, or you might associate them with exercise because of their lyrics or your own past experiences.[vii] Regardless of why you associate these pieces with exercise, think of associative music not as a necessity, but rather, as a bonus that can improve your exercise performance.

Ultimately, the music you listen to while exercising should reflect your personal traits and preferences, exercise activities and surroundings, and goals for engaging in physical activity.[viii] But by considering the universal factors of rhythm response, musicality, cultural impact, and association, you can ensure that you choose the right music for the task at hand.

Now the PSO staff would love to hear from you. How do you create your exercise playlists? Use the comment forum below to let us know whether you consider any of the factors outlined in this article or if you have other methods for picking exercise music.