Working out with your favorite songs is a great way to make the time spent burning calories more enjoyable, but beyond offering your ears something fun to hear, recent studies and research have also suggested that working out with music can improve your mental acuity when you train. Music can also have the positive effect of helping you to train longer and harder by allowing you to concentrate on the rhythm of your workout rather than on the difficulty of your exercises.
Changing up Your Gym MixAs it is easy to listen to an entire record of music from your favorite composer or band, knowing every beat, word and tempo of the songs you listen to during a workout can reduce your drive to push yourself to run further or lift more weights. To combat the slowdown in your workout that can be caused by predictability, employ the "random" function on your musical device.
Whether you've got an MP3 player attached to your arm while you run or a boom-box at your feet while you play some beach volleyball, mixing up the tempo can make your workout less predictable and more challenging when that fast tempo song fills your ears when you least expect it. Simply employing the radio instead of pre-recorded songs can also aid in keeping your ears and body guessing during a workout.
Using a Metronome to Create Your Perfect WorkoutAn inexpensive and simple device to create a structured playlist is a metronome. Employed by musicians to gauge the proper tempo for songs they perform, a metronome can allow you to form a playlist of songs that gradually increase in tempo and speed. This means you can create a playlist where your feet will hit the pavement faster and faster, allowing you to spend the proper amount of time warming up before the most intense part of your workout.
In addition, you can also create a playlist that slowly decreases in tempo so as to assist in creating a full and proper cool down period for your workout. Soothing music can also help your mind to relax after an intense workout, providing a meditative end to your exercises.
Playing It Safe with MusicMusic devices are often restricted from use in local events such as 5K and 10K races. Using music during a workout has the potential to place you in the way of motorists, bicyclists or other people on foot. Zoning out to your favorite tunes can turn into a dangerous experience. The more enjoyable your music, the easier it is to forget your surroundings and things like stoplights, sidewalks and street signs. So, as to avoid potential accidents while working out, make sure the volume of your music is not so loud that it drowns out everything around you.
You should always be able to hear the traffic over the music coming out of your headphones. This is also good advice for keeping your ears in good working order since listening to extremely loud music too often can be harmful to your eardrums.
