Running & Music

Its been a years and debatable hot topics, should you listening music when running? Outside or inside (in treadmill)? There's so many pro and cons also many research to find the right "answer." In the beginning, i run without music..but its just only a 1km distance....when i started run further...ill try to listening music when do that and it's still continue until now. I'm aware i should consider the traffic and environment, if not safe i just hear music from my left ear..i let my right ear open to hear surrounding. It work well but honestly, i prefer run with my ears fill with the IEM.

So, i'm in pro side in this. I'm just recreational runners and wanna get fun in my "torture" session. Yes, i called my running season it's a torture...but somehow its addicted and push me to keep my concentrate and so called "meditation", i need to stay focus to control my breath and my cadence. Music help me to seal myself from any distracting sound and pump my spirits.

It's my experience, so this is opinion and research results about that:

‘Pro’ music is psychologist Lindy Emsley, who loves pairing her fast-paced road and treadmill runs with upbeat electronic music tracks. She’s what sports psychologists call a ‘dissociator’ – she spends her runs looking for ways to forget her protesting quads as she approaches a monster hill. “I find listening to upbeat songs distracts me from how tired I’m feeling,” she says. “Sometimes, a distraction is all I really need during a run in order to push myself.” Researchers at Dalhousie University in Canada examined the influence of music on self-paced running. They found participants who listened to fast-tempo music were more likely to self-select a higher running speed, elevate their heart rate to a higher level, and find the experience of running more enjoyable. 

Furthermore, Robert Jan Bood, a researcher at the MOVE Research Institute in Amsterdam, found that music significantly delays time to exhaustion. That’s because motivational music helps you to focus on the positive aspects of running, like happiness, and less on the negative aspects. “An external stimulus such as music can actually block some of the internal stimuli trying to reach the brain – such as fatigue-related messages from muscles and organs,” says Dr Costas Karageorghis, a sports psychologist who has studied music’s positive influence on athletes. According to Bood, music doesn’t appear to influence what you feel, only how you feel about it.

From a scientific viewpoint, Bood says, keeping the beat helps runners to maintain a consistent pace, by coupling cadence to the required tempo. When Emsley tried running with music that had a prominent and consistent beat, she says, it helped her boost her pace from 5:10 mins/km to 4:30 mins/km. “Music makes me run much faster. My body unconsciously adapts to the rhythm – when the beat gets faster, I tend to speed up with it.”

In 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 runners work harder, as a result of the motivational aspect of the music; and more efficiently, thanks to a consistent beat that matches their cadence, says Bood. What the researchers at Dalhousie University also found is that listening to slow music, post-exercise – again, as opposed to no music – resulted in faster heart rate and blood-lactate recovery. That’s because music actions the bits of the nervous system that conserve energy, and one of the ways it does so is by slowing down heart rate. 

Interestingly, listening to static noise (or fast music) didn’t lower participants’ heart rates at rest. Healthy individuals and athletes who engage in high-intensity interval training could use slow music during active rest periods to hasten recovery. A study published in the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research found the most important factor for relaxation was how much participants liked the music. Listening to motivational songs (with a tempo that matches our cadence) helps improve our times, and calm songs accelerate our recovery.

Also a new research, presented at the american collage of cardiology has confirmed listening to upbeat music can increase endurance. it's thanks to feel-good chemicals released in the brain, which can stave off fatigue and pain.

So, i'm not alone in here...maybe you agree or disagree with this information. In terms of fun running, you must consider the safety reason when decided to run with music plug in you ear, don't raise the volume too loud and make sure you do that in low traffic environment. If you hesitate, just let one of your ear open, so you can still get the "pump" from music and aware the situation in the same times.


Source:
Runners World SA 11/2016
http://www.active.com/running/articles/can-music-make-you-a-better-runner
http://www.runnersworld.com/running-debates/should-you-listen-to-music-while-running
http://www.runnersworld.com/workout-music/running-debate-running-with-music


Run On!