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Music and Athletic Performance

I recently started taking regular trips to the gym as a coping mechanism for the long, cold, oft-polar-vortexed Wisconsin winter. While I love being guided through workouts in a group exercise class, I’ve often lamented the fact that the music the instructors play isn’t always exactly what I want to hear.

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


I recently started taking regular trips to the gym as a coping mechanism for the long, cold, oft-polar-vortexed Wisconsin winter. While I love being guided through workouts in a group exercise class, I've often lamented the fact that the music the instructors play isn't always exactly what I want to hear. I always find I work out harder and longer when I've got my favorite tunes pumping in my headphones and synchronizing my steps. I recently saw this video and wished that I could also work out to hip hop jams:

Fortunately, the folks over at ASAP Science have released a video explaining the effects of music on athletic performance. Apparently, the optimal speed of a workout song is greater than 120 beats per minute. To that note, the song featured in the workout video above is only 83 BPM, but since Lil Boosie's "Wipe Me Down" contains sentimental Baton Rouge memories for me it's still quite effective in getting me to work harder at the gym. Check out ASAP Science on the topic in the video below.


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Image via Flickr user Ed Yourdon

About Princess Ojiaku

Hey there! I'm a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin Madison in the Neuroscience and Public Policy program. I'm also a musician who played in two bands in North Carolina, one called Pink Flag and another called Deals. My personal passions are science, music, and cycling as transportation.

I got into science as a kid while tagging along and watching my mom do experiments in her lab. I found that while I loved science, I didn't want to be alone in an ivory tower, crunching data that few others would understand. I also noticed that many other people thought science was this scary and incomprehensible entity of obscurity. When I realized that there were people working to make science fun and accessible to everyone, I knew that this was exactly what I wanted to do. The two things I find the most immensely interesting and continually impressing are music and neuroscience, so these are the topics that I'll focus on in my blog. Philosophy and politics are my second loves, so I might pop in an occasional post on these topics as well. Ultimately I am here to share things that give me wonder. I hope that reading Science with Moxie gives you a bit of that wonder too.

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