Did you know that running to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers or Queen may help you reach your step goal sooner?
Research conducted at Brunel University in London has confirmed that when you run in time to music, keeping pace with the beat improves your ability to cope with exhaustion and helps to enhance your physical endurance by up to 15%. In fact, Costas Karageorghis, one of the world’s leading experts on the psychology of exercise music, wrote that one could think of music as “a type of legal performance-enhancing drug.” And let’s face it your experience of cardiovascular exercise will also be far more positive.
Choosing the right music to exercise to, is not as simple as just playing the top 100.
Calculate your steps per minute by running for 15 minutes at a pace you are comfortable with. During that run count your steps for 1 minute. Do this several times to get an average. To get the best benefits you need to align the number of steps you run per minute with the beats per minute of the music you listen to.
Want to up the intensity? Increase the intensity of your workout by raising the music tempo by one or two BPMs beyond your comfort zone – this will increase your work rate with the added benefit that the difference in effort will be almost unnoticeable.
