Burning Music

The power of music becomes very helpful when athletes begin to feel the lactic acid building up (aka “the burn”) in their muscles during high intensity activities such as running, rowing, and cycling.  In these situations, music flips an involuntary switch providing the stimuli that diverts attention away from internal sensations of fatigue during training for repetitive activities.

Music works effortlessly in the background as a simple stimulus to prime and enhance an athletes’ motivation, task engagement, emotional arousal, and overall enjoyment.  Used in a vast array of settings, music’s most common purpose for athletes is in assisting with emotion regulation, pre-event preparation, warm-up, or extended training sessions.  Music can also upload positive emotions such as happiness, confidence, and encourage relaxation.

Priming is an intervention used at a subconscious level to influence an athlete’s motivation and behavior.  As a passive and unobtrusive activation, priming subtly creates relevant mental representations.  Without being consciously aware of its influence, the positive synergistic effects elicited by individual athletes through the combination of music and video priming have been studied, although, they have yet to be examined in real-life sporting contexts. 

That said, many of the investigations into music and performance have applied only to music during exercise leaving the influence of warm-up music unclear.  Because an athlete’s ability to listen to music during a competition or performance is not always possible, listening before or during warm-up is used to enhance the subsequent performance benefits.  In addition, an athlete’s personalized warm-up music can increase motivation during warm-up compared to non-personalized warm-up music.

Hey, you don’t have to suffer as the lactic acid builds up in your muscles — providing that exquisite burning sensation of fatigue and utter exhaustion during your gym workout or neighborhood run.  To divert attention away from your suffering, just do what elite athletes do.  Turn on some music.  Now, get down and do twenty pushups. — FB

References

Ballmann, C. G., Cook, G. D., Hester, Z. T., Kopec, T. J., Williams, T. D., & Rogers, R. R. (2020). Effects of preferred and non-preferred warm-up music on resistance exercise performance. Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology, 6(1), 3. https://doi.org/10.3390/jfmk6010003

Karageorghis, C. I., & Terry, P. (2010). Inside sport psychology (First ed.). Human Kinetics, Inc. Kindle Edition.

Pettit, J. A., & Karageorghis, C. I. (2020). Effects of video, priming, and music on motivation and self-efficacy in american football players. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 15(5-6), 685–695. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747954120937376