Music is an integral part of any workout session. Whatever your fitness goal may be, the right selection of tunes can be the difference between achieving a faster pace, completing an exhausting set, or even setting a new personal record.
This seemingly dichotomous relationship has been explored again and again by researchers, in which music's positive effects have been proven. However, much of the focus of these studies was on varieties of popular music like hip-hop, R&B, and even dance music.
But for Costas Karageorghis, a sport psychology professor and divisional lead at Brunel University London, classical music possesses an untapped potential when it comes to its benefits as an auditory supplement during physical training.
In this article, we'll be going through what these benefits are according to Karageorghis and his colleagues' research on the subject, as reported in The Independent.
FEBRUARY 19: Photo of woman listening to music on earphones jogging down a paved street uploaded on Pexels on February 19th, 2020.
The 'Distracting' Benefits of Classical Music
Karageorghis explains that the main role of exercise music is to dampen pain, improve mood, and even quicken the individual's perception of time. The professor and his contemporaries dub music's ability to distract as "dissociative effects," and through this, it can take away attention from internally processed exhaustion.
In a 2017 study conducted by Karageorghi and his colleagues, they discovered through the utilization of neuroimaging technology that music tended to reduce the communicative process that happens in parts of the brain that handle exhaustion and fatigue.
That said, music cannot reduce these perceptions when the overall physical workload is very intense, however, it can still affect the way an individual processes this fatigue mood-wise, even up to complete voluntary exhaustion.
For example, the calming and captivating ending passage of Rossini's "William Tell Overture" might not fully distract a runner from the burn they feel within their lungs and across the muscular fibers of their legs, but it will improve the runner's interpretation of the fatigue and overall mood during the exercise.
Read Also: The 7 Best Classical Albums of 2023 Featuring Timeless Pieces from Mozart, Puccini, and Others
The 'Ergogenic' or Performance-Improving Effect of Classical Music
Another benefit of classical music is its "ergogenic" or performance-enhancing effect as explored in a study published in "The Sports Psychologist" authored by exercise expert Maria Rendi.
In her research, Rendi made use of both the slow and fast passages within Beethoven's "Symphony No.7 in A major, OP. 92" to investigate specifically the effects of music tempo with the 500-meter sprint rowing performances of selected athletes.
According to Rendi's findings, both the fast and slow portions of Beethoven's piece yielded improvement in the sprint times of the athletes, with the passage that had a faster tempo (144 bpm) giving an overall 2 percent increase in performance yields and the slower tempo (76 bpm) giving out a 0.6 percent improvement.
For your own playlist, you can implement Vivaldi's "Four Seasons: Winter" as an excellent fast-paced piece within your playlist, with its quick 144 bpm tempo to heighten your performance. For the slower end, try implementing Maurice Ravel's "Bolero" with its more calming passages cruising on a tempo of 70 bpm.
In the end, individual music taste is still the defining factor in whether or not classical music will work as effectively as it could, but a change of pace will be a benefit to anyone.
Related Article: Beating in Harmony: Recent Study Says Classical Music Audiences 'Sync' to Each Other Physically and Emotionally
