Having trouble staying motivated during your workout? Here’s one way to fight it: Listen to music. A new study from McMaster University in Canada reveals that people who listened to music during high intensity exercise worked out harder and longer than those who did not.
As an added bonus, listening to music seemed to make the exercise seem easier, even if the workout was very strenuous, say researchers.
“Many people find the experience aversive,” says Matthew Stork, a graduate student from McMaster University who led the study. “How music affects performance and perceptions during intense exercise remains unclear, but it likely involves arousal responses. People may also turn to music in hopes of ignoring their body’s insistent messages of discomfort.”
While there is little anyone can do to make a intense exercise easier without reducing its difficulty, Stork hypothesized that altering how people feel about the exercise–such as making it more fun or enjoyable–could motivate people to work out at a grueling pace. That led him to explore the effects of music–something identified in previous studies to motivate people to exercise more.
To begin his study, he recruited 20 young adults with no experience with high intensity exercise, then had them complete something called SIT, or sprint interval exercise. Though the exercise is short, it’s very taxing on the body–the perfect workout for his experiment. Not surprisingly, after they completed the workout, they reported not having much fun.
Then Stork had them do the exercises again while having them listen to their favorite songs–and the effects were immediate. After another interview, participants reported feeling more pleasure while exercising, and researchers found that they also exercised harder while doing so.
“Music enhanced in-task performance and enjoyment of an acute bout of SIT [sprint interval exercise],” says Stork. “The purpose of this study was to determine if listening to self-selected music can reduce the potential aversiveness of an acute session of SIT [sprint interval exercise] by improving affect, motivation and enjoyment, and to examine the effects of music on performance. Listening to music during intense interval exercise may be an effective strategy to facilitate participation in, and adherence to, this form of training.”
What This Means For You
If you’re struggling to get through your workout, perhaps what you don’t need is more willpower–instead, listening to your favorite music may help. To stay motivated, try listening to a playlist of your favorite upbeat songs while doing high intensity workout as a way to work out harder while having fun too.
Readers: Do you listen to music while you work out? Why or why not?
Sources:
How Music Can Boost a High-Intensity Workout, Make You Work Out Harder (Study) – NYTimes.com
Music Enhances Performance and Perceived Enjoyment of Sprint Interval Exercise – NIH.gov
How Music Really Affects Your Workout: New Science Suggests It’s All About That Bass – Cosmopolitan.com
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