How Music Can Boost a High Intensity Workout

High intensity interval training (or HIIT for short) is a popular concept that helps to keep your body burning fat even after you leave the gym. It is a highly demanding exercise with a lot of health benefits, and can also be physically unpleasant.

How does music help?

Several studies have however shown that listening to music, while engaging in this interval training, can change how you feel about it and make it feel easier, that you will think of continuing it in the future. HIIT consists of brief bouts of hard, draining exercise interrupted by several minutes of lighter exercise or rest periods. The intense intervals lasts for about 10 to 20 seconds, but functions just as effective as doing it in an hour would.

Why you should listen to music while working out

Past studies have also shown that people’s fitness are improved with about 15 to 20 minute sessions of interval training, and reduces the risk of chronic diseases in the body. In interval training, every minute counts.

The study of music and its connection to workouts have been really studied lately, and most people have reported that listening to energetic songs make a workout feel easier and less monotonous.

Although most of these studies focused on less daunting exercises like 30 minutes of running or jogging, and so far, only a few of these studies have arrived at the conclusion that it is effective for interval training. Some others see interval training as a really draining training.

In HIIT, there is a loud physiological noise from the individual’s muscles and lungs, and some scientists on this issue thought that the noise would probably drown the music, so it will be of no use anyway.

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However, a new study published about two months ago in the Journal of Sports Sciences, researchers from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, advertised for volunteers who would be willing to try a hard but very brief workout. With this advertisement, they got 20 volunteers, both male and female and new to HIIT. After filling a series of questionnaires to be sure they were really ready for it, they were introduced to the training.

The experiment was done the regular way with no music on the first visit, and on the second, they were allowed to listen to their chosen playlist. After each session, the riders were told to rest and also fill a questionnaire. Considering the fact that they were new to the exercise, one would have thought they’d readily give up without thinking twice, due to the strenuous work their bodies had undergone. However, that wasn’t the case, as their responses were quite positive. They were willing to do it again, because the music intensified their attitudes to the training.

Music can affect one’s performance and your chosen playlist also plays an effective role in this.

image couresy: psdgraphics.com, psychologies.co.uk, phenomena.nationalgeographic.com.

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