Good morning!
I was so excited when my alarm went off this morning because that meant that I could run today! :) After a quick check of how I was feeling I deemed that it was a run day. Yippee.
Before I left, I had half of a Glo Bar. This bar doesn’t even exist yet! It is a trial from several weeks ago that I popped in the freezer.
Yum.
After 15-20 minutes of digesting and reading, I was on the road. It was a cool and sunny morning. Perfect for running! I didn’t bring Dwight with me because I wanted my body to tell me how fast it wanted to go and not have any watch feedback. I find the best way to get back into exercise after several days off is to ease in slowly and let your body tell you what it feels up for.
I ended up running my 3 mile route and I felt pretty good, albeit a bit more ‘rusty’ than usual.
I was excited for my first Green Monster since before the Chicago trip. We haven’t had any spinach or kale in the house, but I picked some up last night when I got a huge craving for a GM.
In the mix…
In the GM = 1 cup Almond Milk, 1 tsp Raw Maca Powder, 1 scoop Amazing Grass Wheatgrass, 1/2 ripe banana, 3 cups organic spinach, 1 juicy nectarine, 2 pieces ice.
Mmmm it was silky and delicious! The nectarine was really nice in it too.
And of course loose leaf…
Does Music Make You Workout Harder?
This morning I read an interesting article on the NY Times website about music and exercise. Tara Parker-Pope writes, ‘It’s music’s dual ability to distract attention (a psychological effect) while simultaneously goosing the heart and the muscles (physiological impacts) that makes it so effective during everyday exercise.”
Personally, I have always been a huge fan of pumping the fast beats during exercise and I do believe that it helps me train harder and not give up. However, I will admit that sometimes music just doesn’t seem to be that effective and can even be annoying.
What I thought was most interesting was that research shows there are limits to the impact music has during exercise, most notably during intense exercise. Research suggests that when you exercise at an intense level music doesn’t really have much of an impact. In a recent review of the research in 2009, Karageorghis and Priest claim that music narrows attention and distracts the mind from fatigue during moderate exercise, however during intense exercise “perceptions of fatigue override the impact of music, because attentional processes are dominated by physiological feedback.” Despite music not having as great an impact during intense exercise, many participants still claimed that they enjoyed listening to the music regardless!
I can totally relate to this research because I find that music works great for me during training runs, but during all of my races, I found that the music didn’t have as much of an impact on my performance. At times I even found the music was annoying during a race, but during other times a certain song got me through a difficult mile. It really varies for me! Sometimes during a race I will turn my music off completely and just listen to my breath and focus on my stride, pace, and the course.
What about you, does music make you workout harder? Does it help your training? What about during for intense exercise?
I think the only way music helps me training is to relieve boredom! I don’t reaaally think it makes me go faster, it’s just nice to have ‘company’ – but maybe i’m totally wrong and i’ve just never NOT used music so i wouldn’t know!
Interesting post! I generally find that music helps push me through workouts, unless I’m having a tough day and it just irritates me, so that’s when I prefer to listen to plain sounds like waves or white noise. When I’m doing a workout video, I like muting the sound on that and playing my own mix of music. Oddly enough I’ve found that I complete workout videos when I don’t listen to the “motivating” (read: obnoxious) commentaries of the trainer. Have a nice day!
I have found that running is easier for me with music. I learned to run with couch to 5k podcast, which had tacky techno music, so I wasn’t feeling it. Once that was over, I made my own playlist with favorite songs, and I could run much faster and longer, and HAPPIER. However, the worst part about this: over the weekend I did my first sprint triathlon (and first race of any kind), and NO IPODS are allowed, which made the run super hard.
Music helps me alot during training, but during a race I like to run without any music. I like to hear the crowds cheering, the other runners talking to me, talking to each other, etc. And I like to talk to other runners too.
There have been plenty of times when I am losing steam during a training run and then a great song starts and my speed quickens – it truly is amazing sometimes!
Music does make me workout harder IF I am in the mood. If I am feeling really pumped up, music will keep me going, but if I start of with zero motivation, I am better off watching TV or reading a book while working out.
I’ve never exercised with music on, for a few reasons:
– don’t want to carry anything extra around with me
– don’t want anything in my ears
– don’t have the ability (or desire!) to put together exercise playlists
– have spent my whole life exercising without music and it works just fine! :)
i’m totally wary of running with music outdoors… safety, safety, safety!
that green monster looks and reads amazing! we’ve got some kale to use up so I think a green monster is in the near future for us. btw, my lovely husband now refers to smoothies with anything green in them (usually spinach) as green monsters. so awesome! thanks for introducing me (us) to them, Angela! :)
I say yes… I am so so huge into music, and an upbeat beat ;) will get a “charge” out of me and make me want to move!
Running outside, I never listen to music. I like the peaceful quiet and listening to my breathing.
Music usually lifts me up and helps a lot during training. At the gym I always train with music, and now I’m using the couch to 5k app, with a version that picks up music from what I have in iTunes. It has given me a real boost on some running portions! I actually should be careful with this because I almost ended up breathless and panting a couple of times ;-)
Music is definitely a must for me when I exercise. Both the Glo Bar and Green Monster look delicious!
I’m a relavitve newbie to the running workout but I have noticed when songs changes if it is a more upbeat tempto i will go faster and I enjoy the more mellow ones to warm up to. I always have the buds in my ears (prevent wind in my ears, get a lot of earaches) but often I will shut it off.
Green monster looks yummy. Does the wheatgrass supplement have any flavour to it?
I never run with music, I’m too lazy to bother with carrying anything and want to hear what’s going on around me since I often run alone… but in the winter at the gym, I love running to music!
Music is great when I’m strength training and makes me push harder. When I run, I usually prefer to go sans the iPod. I found that I don’t usually pay attention to the music when I run. I’m more focused on my form and breathing.
I actually kind of hate listening to music while running/biking/etc. I don’t like taking the time to pick out songs. Then, I usually have a few I don’t really want to listen to, so I hate fumbling to press “skip.” When I did try music a few times, half the time I forgot to charge the mp3 player, so it would run out 1/2 way. Fail. I’m also not a fan of the cord bouncing on me and the ear buds usually make my ears a bit sore too. –Especially with biking but also running, I like to have both ears open to hear things around me. It’s hard enough to hear on a bike w/the wind…have both ears plugged into music scares me!
I need music to work out! I hate working out without it. I like a good beat to jam to. :)
i want that tea cup!!!! thats so precious <3
music definitely pushes me harder. i knock off a lot of minutes on my race time because of it. its amazing!
Music definitley helps me get in the groove and keep moving. I like to sing along in my head, it gives me something to focus on!
If I’m doing an intense workout with intervals music is sooo helpful. I also like podcasts and books on tape for long workouts and weight lifting…helps me zone out.
Music definitely impacts my workout. The right music can make me push hard than I normally would. On the flip side, softer music slows me down a bit.
I love music at my gym workouts, but when I run outside, I usually like to just take in the sounds of nature and my feet beating the path!
I don’t usually work out to music in my ears – but sometimes I do in my head! It’s good this way that way I can “hear” my favorite parts – or the most upbeat part–of a song over and over again!
When I attend classes at the gym it goes both ways. Once a teacher apologized for not having music one day – and I didn’t even realize that we weren’t using any until she said that. I used to go to this early morning Pilates class and the teacher blasted the post sugary pop music…not what I would typically listen to – but I secretly loved going to that class for that reason!