Rebeca Piccardo/Assistant News Director
When it’s time to hit the gym, a new study has shown that the best way to get a good workout is to make music.
A recent study from the National Academy of Sciences indicates that “making music makes strenuous physical activities less exhausting.”
Previous studies have already proven that listening to music can alter a person’s workout results, such as matching the tempo of the music with exercise.
Warren Shaw, assistant director of the Biscayne Bay Campus Recreation Services, said that music is a huge component in everything that they do at the recreation center.
According to Shaw, if a song with a slower tempo came on the music station that usually has fast-paced music, it would disrupt people’s workouts.
“You can see people stop and look around, confused,” said Shaw.
The type of music that is played also determines who attends certain classes at the rec center.
Ratasha Iribarren, a junior and journalism major, works at Recreation Services Center as a fitness instructor and personal trainer at Modesto Maidique Campus. At the beginning of each semester, she constructs a special playlist for each class.
“Each song has a number of beats per minute (bpm) that compliments the types of exercises I want to teach in those three to four minutes,” said Iribarren.
This semester, she is teaching “Ultimate Abs” and “Tighten and Tone” classes, so she keeps the music at a bpm of 130. But for a high intensity cardio class, a faster bpm, between 136 to 160 bpm, motivates the participant to move faster during the sequences.
According to Iribarren, she tends to choose top 40 songs because people are motivated by music they are familiar with.
“When you know the song and it’s a song you like, it creates a sense of empowerment, so that you can really go hard for that half hour, 45 minute or one hour class,” said Iribarren.
In her personal workouts, Iribarren finds it difficult to accomplish as much without music.
[pullquote]“Whenever I forget my headphones, it almost discourages me from working out because I know I’m not going to be in my zone.”[/pullquote]
According to Thomas Hans Fritz, the lead researcher of this new study, music instigates movement that is almost unconscious, thus causing less conscious physical strain.
However, music may not be ideal for all workouts.
Jessica Pascual, a sophomore studying criminal justice, works out five times a week, doing an hour of strength training and a half hour of cardio each time.
According to Pascual, music disrupts her strength workouts, because it distracts her from keeping track of the sets and repetitions.
[pullquote]“When I’m lifting weights, I don’t listen to music because I find it too distracting and I find myself synchronizing my repetitions to the beat of the song.”[/pullquote]
However, the same subconscious synchronization that disrupts her strength training is what Pascual finds helpful in passing the time while doing cardio.
“When I listen to music while doing cardio I kind of tend to forget about the ‘pain’ I’m enduring,” said Pascual. “It makes the cardio more enjoyable.”
This new study measured the “psychologically indicated exertion during physical workout” with and without music.
Other students also find that music is beneficial when doing cardio workouts, such as running.
Melissa Perez, a junior and psychology major, who used to run track and cross country in high school, finds that playing music and singing along to it distracted her from getting tired more quickly.
“My best friend and I would put music on our phones out loud when running and it would be fun because sometimes we would sing along and it distracted us a bit from the horrible length of our run,” said Perez.
According to Perez, although singing while running did make her short of breath, playing and singing music helped pass the time.
Genesis Zambrano, a senior majoring in music education, isn’t surprised that there is a correlation between making music and workout efficiency.
“Creating inspires people to enjoy doing more,” said Zambrano. “Not to mention that the same correlation can be seen in other disciplines when you find an enjoyable way to do what you ‘have’ to.”
Unlike previous studies that had shown how music affects the perception of exhaustion when conducting strenuous activities, this new study aims at understanding “the role of music in the emergence of human society.”
– rebeca.piccardo@fiusm.com
About Post Author
