Classes of students in an aerobic dance class know music helps them as they exercise. Marathon runners, cyclists and triathletes employ music to help motivate them as they push their bodies to a higher level of intensity and training. Using the right kinds of music during aerobic exercise provides benefits in several areas of physical training.
Significance
During a repetitive exercise such as running, listening to music helps the runner to focus her attention more narrowly. While she is listening to stimulating music and running her laps, she is able to focus more on what she is accomplishing and less on her fatigue, reports fitnessvenues.com.
Distance runners--triathletes and marathon runners--call this phenomenon “dissociation,” where they focus on a stimulus that is not related to the training or competition run, but instead, on the music. The runners who are able to effectively dissociate from their physical feelings are able to stay more upbeat during their workouts.
Function
The correct kind of training music helps to change the athlete’s arousal level. He uses his heightened emotional and mental arousal to help to stimulate him before a planned competition. Trainers can use music to help calm overstimulated athletes before a competition, according to fitnessvenues.com.
Athletes preparing for a competition can utilize music to help them enter the right type of competitive mind-set; in the same way, they can use calming or sedating music to help to wind down and relax after a vigorous training session or competition.
Effects
The right musical tempo can help the athlete to regulate her movements during aerobic exercise. If she is cycling, rowing or cross-country skiing, the music she hears through her earbuds helps her to increase her physical effort, using steady, controlled movement.
Synchronizing music to movement helps the athlete to function more efficiently during her workout and her endurance level increases. She needs to choose music with a tempo that matches her planned workout movements--if she is distance running, her music should have a steady beat, says The Sport Journal.
Considerations
The correct music helps the athlete enter an altered state of awareness. This state, called “flow,” refers to the athlete’s state of awareness while engaged in strenuous physical activity. When he is in the right state of awareness, his body and mind are on autopilot. For some athletes, this state is almost like a trance, or hypnotic state. “Flow” is the optimal psychological state of enjoyment of the physical activity, says fitnessvenues.com.
Benefits
Listening to music when learning a new aerobic exercise helps the athlete’s motor skills. If she listens to the right kind of music, she can experience a beneficial effect on stylistic movement, writes The Sport Journal. In theory, the body moves through movement patterns, aided by music. The workout, be it cycling, dancing or running, becomes fun as the athlete experiences an increased motivation to learn at a higher level. The right song lyrics can help the athlete as she trains to reinforce various areas of her training. Music helps to take the boredom out of a training session.
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