It’s generally a good idea to make sure that you’re aware of your surroundings when you’re running, especially when you’re road running but even if you’re on a trail shared with other users like horses and mountain bikers (or bears and mountain lions). However, if you are keen to see how music can improve your performance, there are a couple of points to take into account before you set off. There are, of course, other motivational tools you can use, such as meditation for runners. Perhaps you’re not trying to improve your running pace, or maybe you prefer the benefits of listening to natural sounds such as bird calls – after all, a 2013 study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology found that listening to the sounds of birds helps you to recover from stress and restore mental focus. Let’s just say here that you don’t have to run with music just because it’s been shown to scientifically make you run faster. Woman wearing Shokz OpenRun Pro bone conduction headphones How to run with music Even better, they discovered that listening to calming music after your run can accelerate your recovery, helping you to come back better for your next race. They had their test subjects listen to motivational music before and during 5km runs and calming music afterwards and their findings suggest you have as much as a 39% chance of improving your performance when you compete. If you’re really stuck between a night in and the couch, try putting on some motivational music for five minutes and see if you can change your mind.įinally, what does all this mean for you if you’re a competitive runner? Does music improve your running performance enough for it to become part of your marathon training plan?The authors of a 2015 study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research seem to think so. This all sounds very convincing, but what if you tend to run at the end of your long work day, or fit it in around the demands of young children? Can something as simple as a good playlist help you overcome that level of exhaustion, or does it negate the potential benefits of music? In a 2021 study, researchers at the University of Edinburgh found that listening to music helped runners who had just completed a demanding thinking task to run at the same performance level as if they were not mentally fatigued, meaning listening to music might help you overcome those end-of-the-day doldrums when the couch looks like a serious contender for the evening’s activities. Once you’re out the door you’ll focus more on the beat of the music than what’s happening inside your chest cavity. The reduced feelings of fatigue and effort can actually serve to improve your motivation around running and he suggests that you should even put on some music before you even leave the house, or while you’re warming up, to help switch your brain away from the effort you know you’re about to have to muster.
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