How music can enhance your marathon training or triathlon training

A good song may alleviate the boredom of a long marathon training run, take the edge off your suffering during a hilly triathlon training ride, or add a layer of pure enjoyment to an intense weightlifting session. Especially in harder workouts, the right music almost seems to act like a performance-enhancing drug. But, of course, there’s no way something as intangible as a song could change your body’s physiological limits. Or could it?

Listen To The Studies

Research suggests that music really can boost athletic performance. For example, a 2009 study by researchers at Liverpool John Moores University in England looked at the effects of music of different tempos on stationary cycling performance. Twelve subjects rode bikes for 25 minutes at a self-selected intensity level on three separate occasions while listening to popular music. Without the subjects’ knowledge, the tempo of the music was manipulated so that it was normal in one workout, 10 percent faster than normal in another workout, and 10 percent slower than normal in the remaining workout.

The subjects’ average power output over the full 25 minutes was found to be 3.5 percent greater when the music tempo was increased. Their power dropped by 9.8 percent when the music was slowed down.

So clearly fast music is better for performance than slow music. But is music generally better than no music? Yes, according to a 2004 study done by researchers at England’s Lincoln University. Student volunteers completed a muscular endurance task (holding a weight as long as they could) while listening to self-selected “motivational music” and again while listening to white noise. The subjects were able to hold the weight significantly longer while listening to music.

Listen To Your Brain

So, how can mere sounds boost a person’s physical endurance? The answer to this question has to do with the brain’s role in physical performance. Exercise scientists used to believe that fatigue occurred when the muscles or cardiorespiratory system hit some kind of hard physiological limit. For example, the muscles became so acidic that they stopped working properly. It is now understood that such limits are never reached. Instead, the brain imposes fatigue before these limits are reached to protect the body from serious harm.

Because the brain essentially chooses to impose fatigue based on a prediction of where the body’s true physiological limits lie, the brain has some flexibility in setting performance limits. When an athlete is highly motivated, the brain will risk a bit more and allow the body to come a little closer to the point of self-harm in pursuit of better performance. All kinds of factors may influence an athlete’s level of motivation, and music appears to be one of them.
 
Listen To Some Music

You certainly don’t have to rely on music to motivate your best performance, and you probably shouldn’t rely on it too heavily in training, because you can’t legally race with headphones on. But if you feel that listening to your favorite songs gives you a boost during some of your marathon training runs or triathlon training workouts, it probably does. So, don’t stop the music. And if you’ve never tried training with music, maybe now is the time to finally invest in an iPod!