If you feel like music gives your workout an extra boost, you’re not alone. Now, researchers at Texas Tech University say they’ve figured
out just how much upbeat tunes can increase our tolerance for intense
exercise: In a new study, participants who listened to music during a
cardiac stress test were able to sweat it out for almost a minute longer
than those who didn’t.Find the more
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The new study, which has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, will be presented this week at the American College of
Cardiology’s annual meeting in Orlando. The authors say their findings
put some real data behind what many of us already know: that exercise
can make difficult workouts seem easier.”At least on a small scale, this
study provides some evidence that music may help serve as an extra tool
to help motivate someone to exercise more—which is critical to heart
health,” said lead author Waseem Shami, MD, a cardiology fellow at Texas
Tech University Health Sciences, in a press release.
Dr. Shami and his colleagues recruited 127 patients, each of whom was already scheduled for a routine electrocardiogram (ECG) treadmill
stress test. The exam is used to measure how the heart responds to
increasingly strenuous exercise; in this case, both the treadmill speed
and incline were increased every three minutes.
Half of the participants were randomly selected to listen to Latin-inspired, up-tempo music during their time on the treadmill, while
the other half walked in silence. (All participants wore headphones, to
prevent the investigators from knowing who was in which group.)When
they crunched the numbers, the researchers found that people who
listened to music stuck with the test for an average of 8 minutes and 26
seconds, compared to an average of 7 minutes and 35 seconds for the
no-music group. “After six minutes, you feel like you are running up a
mountain, so even being able to go 50 seconds longer means a lot,” said
Dr. Shami in the press release.
This isn’t the first study to suggest that a sick beat and a catchy tune can improve athletic performance. Some research even suggests that
people enjoy high-intensity workouts more when they’re paired with
rhythm and melodies. Then again, other experts have noted that there may
be a downside to working out with music: Auditory distractions can
affect biomechanics, one 2017 study found, and might raise your risk of
injury.
