Did you know that the BPM (beats per minutes) or tempo of your songs in your workout playlist can affect the effectiveness of your workout? A study by John Moores University shows that the BPM of a song can affect the performance of cyclist. For the test, some the volunteers were given music slow down by 10% and others sped up by 10%. The volunteers were not told of the change in music BPM, but their performance show that the ones who were give the slower music perform at a much lower rate. Their heart rates were lower, their mileage was lower, and they feel that the music was mediocre. While the other group improves their mileage in the same time period and their heart rates were higher. They did 36% more work in the same time frame. Even though the music was the same, only sped up, they enjoy the music. This show that even though the exercise was neither comfortable nor easy for either group, the group with the higher BPM music performs better. The higher BPM music gave the volunteers a sense to work harder compare to the slower music.
You may think you have the perfect workout playlist, but songs can be tricky to detect their actual BPM. The best workout music should be between 120-140 BPM. There are two method to find the BPM of a song, the manual way and the software way. The manual way requires you to count the beat of the song by tapping. This method is tedious and for some it may not be possible. The software method requires the use of a program that analyzes the song and produces the BPM of the song for you. You can find software that will let you tap along with the song and ones that will find the BPM for you online for free and paid versions.
Once you have the songs within the 120 -140 ranges, you need to order them to match the BPM to your activity. If you are running on a flat surface like a treadmill then this might be easy, but if you are boxing or running up a hill, you might need to arrange the tunes to go from a slower BPM to a higher one to help you increase your intensity. So plan ahead and arrange the songs in a way that will give you the power songs when you need them most. If you are doing other activities a higher BPM might be useful or even a lower for activities such as yoga where the idea is to slow down but still get the most out of your exercise.
I hope you have found this useful and get a better workout playlist to improve your overall workout. Remember that not every song that is fast has a high BPM or vice-verse, so be sure to get the right software to help you out. Who knew music had such a strange effect on how we do things!
