Are you feeling like your workout is a little lackluster? Feel like you can’t focus during your lifts? A study done by Equinox athletic trainer David Siik might have a solution for you. According to Siik’s study, trance has been discovered to be the best choice of music to workout to.
Siik tested his study on Equinox’s elite treadmill program and based his research on the Mozart effect. The Mozart effect was the result of a study done in 1991 by Dr. Alfred A. Tomatis that showed the composer’s music had healing effects on the brain. This time Siik switched out Mozart’s music and replaced it with Armin van Buuren and Radion 6.
Trance music was discovered to provide athletes with more focus because of its repetitive musical pattern. It was also discovered that trance without lyrics allowed an athlete’s language processing center to be less distracted resulting in better retention.
Siik comments,“If you have, say, Justin Timberlake feeding you this awesome story and then you have a coach, David Siik, telling you to subtract 1.8 from your personal record, and add a 2 per cent incline, I believe it’s overstimulating your language processing center and studies support that.”
However Siik goes on to state that other music can be just as effective depending on the type of workout. Trance was suggested to be prime for pyramid lifting training and high intensity interval training (HIIT) such as sprints. An athlete’s focus won’t be affected by lyrical music during steady runs or any steady state cardio.
“For anybody who’s looking for a little bit of challenge in their workouts and wants to create a sense of structure – say going to Central Park and doing two minutes fast, one minute walk – try this music. I guarantee it changes the experience.”
Next time you plug in your headphones to your listening device we suggest you give trance a try. Seems like the genre known for being repetitive albeit intense could help people bring some change.
