Can Music help Improve Athletic Performance? by Aminee Alexander

Walk into any gym right now. One common theme you’re probably going to encounter is music. Whether that be the gym playing music over their speakers or gym users tuning out that music and everyone else with their headphones, music is a big part of gym culture. Music can be a motivating factor while exercising as well as provide a distraction from the physical exertion. As we all know, there are two types of exercise categories aerobic and anaerobic. Aerobic exercise includes activities such as long-distance running, dancing, and swimming. Anaerobic exercise includes weight-lifting, sprinting, and jumping which are aspects of various competitive sports. The effects of music on both types of exercises has been studied but the studies on music and aerobic exercise far outweigh those focused on anaerobic exercise and music (Atan, 2013). This is probably due to the fact that it may be easier to see more significant results after the longer duration of aerobic exercise than a short-term, high intensity anaerobic exercise.

A study was conducted to show the effects of motivational music on performance of the Wingate Test. The Wingate test is an anaerobic test that is used to measure peak anaerobic performance and anaerobic capacity. In this study, they found that during this thirty second test the motivational music appeared to delay fatigue over the course of the test (Brooks,2010). This is an important finding because sports that require quick sprints or quick bouts of power use the anaerobic energy system and if motivational music can help delay fatigue, their performance in their respective sport can potentially improve. Another study utilizing the Wingate test in young, highly trained athletes, concluded that “music may be considered as a legal method and additional aid for young athletes during warm-up prior to playing competitive games” but cautions that because this finding is based on experimental conditions, the effects of music should be tested in more realistic conditions (Jarraya et al, 2012).

Music has also been studied as method to recover from exercise. When athletes participate in tournaments, they usually don’t get enough rest between games to fully recover but “studies have shown that relaxing music can narrow attention, divert the mind from exercise-induced fatigue, affect arousal, and reduce blood lactate level of athletes” (Ghavam-Bakhtiar et al.,2012).

I am definitely one of those people who listens to their own music in the gym because I feel that it motivates me to keep going and sometimes I use music to time myself. I’ve never really thought about music having so much of an effect on short-duration, high-intensity sports. Even something so simple as including motivational music during warm-ups can potentially improve performance. What really surprised me was that relaxing music actually has shown physiological effects on recovery from exercise. After my next workout, I think I’ll sit and listen to some relaxing music, do nothing else,and see how I feel after.