We’ve all experienced it.

You put in your earbuds, find a playlist, click play, you start jogging on the treadmill, your mind leaves you, and the next thing you realize is you’ve been running for 40 minutes, and you don’t remember how the time flew by so quickly.

This phenomenon is the power of music.

For many of us, we find it difficult to make health and fitness a priority. For some, it takes nagging and possibly a friend dragging you to the gym. In reality, sometimes just creating a better environment will make the task a lot easier to accomplish. For example, at work, people with messy desks find it more challenging to complete tasks compared to those who have clean desks.

Why not declutter the gym space with music?

Time and time again there have been studies linked and proven to improved physical performance with music being the driving force. Researchers Costas Karageorghis and David-Lee Priest from Brunel University in London, England compiled over 60 studies testing this theory of better performance with music since 1997 and published their findings (Karageorghis and Priest, 2012 Parts I & II)

They found that for the majority of all the participants in each study before athletic activities it has been shown to increase stimulation of the brain, facilitate relevant imagery, and improve the performance of simple tasks. When music was used during exercise, it produced work enhancing and psychological improvements. Listening to music during exercise can both postpone fatigue and diminish the subjective notion of fatigue. It can improve energy efficiency increase physical capacity, and influence mood.

With science proving music influences our workouts, why not use it to our advantage?

Here’s an easy way to build the ultimate playlist to improve the quality of your workouts!

  1. Pick songs with songs with a strong, energizing rhythm, uplifting melodies, and inspirational lyrics. With these characteristics, it will prevent you from continually clicking “next” on your phone. Think of choosing songs that are up-tempo between 120bpm to 145bpm. (beats per minute) It’s helpful if you can queue up the tempo of the song to the movement of your body, this will increase the effectiveness of your workout.
  2. Structure your playlist like your workout. You don’t want your first song to be so fast that you feel like you should be sprinting in your warm up. Think about how your workout is structured. There’s usually a warm-up, a strength portion, and possibly a metabolic finisher at the end. Time each song to go along with this in mind.

Now that you have a sense of direction to create the perfect playlist head to the gym and you can thank us later!