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The psychology of workout music

Tom Stafford

Why do we like to listen to tunes when we exercise? Psychologist Tom Stafford

searches for answers within our brains, not the muscles we are exercising.

Perhaps you have a favourite playlist for going to the gym or the park. Even if

you haven't, you're certain to have seen joggers running along with headphones

in their ears. Lots of us love to exercise to music, feeling like it helps to

reduce effort and increase endurance. As a psychologist, the interesting thing

for me is not just whether music helps when exercising, but how it helps.

One thing is certain, the answer lies within our brains, not the muscles we are

exercising. A clue comes from an ingenious study, which managed to separate the

benefits of practicing a movement from the benefits of training the muscle that

does the movement. If you think that sounds peculiar, several studies have

shown that the act of imagining making a movement produces significant strength

gains. The benefit isn't a big as if you practiced making the movement for

real, but still the benefit of thinking about the movement can account for over

half of the benefit of practice. So asking people to carry out an imaginary

practice task allows us to see the benefit of just thinking about a movement,

and separates this from the benefit of making it.

Imaginary practice helps because it increases the strength of the signal sent

from the movement areas of the brain to the muscles. Using electrodes you can

record the size of this signal, and demonstrate that after imaginary practice

people are able to send a stronger, more coherent signal to the muscles.

The signals to move the muscles start in an area of the brain called,

unsurprisingly, the motor cortex. It's in the middle near the top. Part of this

motor area is known as the supplementary motor cortex. Originally thought to be

involved in more complex movements, this area has since been shown to be

particularly active at the point we re planning to make a movement, and

especially crucial for the timing of these actions. So, this specific part of

the brain does a very important job during exercise, it is responsible for

deciding exactly when to act. Once you've realised that a vital part of most

sporting performance is not just how fast or how strong you can move, but the

effort of deciding when to move, then you can begin to appreciate why music

might be so helpful.

The benefits of music are largest for self-paced exercise in other words

those sports where some of the work involved is in deciding when to act, as

well as how to act. This means all paced exercises, like rowing or running,

rather than un-paced exercises like judo or football. My speculation is that

music helps us perform by taking over a vital piece of the task of moving, the

rhythm travels in through our ears and down our auditory pathways to the

supplementary motor area. There it joins forces with brain activity that is

signalling when to move, helping us to keep pace by providing an external

timing signal. Or to use a sporting metaphor, it not only helps us out of the

starting blocks but it helps to keep us going until we reach the line.

Of course there are lots of other reasons we might exercise to music. For

example, a friend of mine who jogs told me: "I started running to music so I

didn't have to listen to my own laboured breathing." He might well have started

for that reason, but now I'll bet the rhythm of the music he listens to helps

him keep pace through his run. As one song might have put it, music lets us get

physical.