The Science Behind Music For Muscles

Everyone of us who lifts weights with the goal of transforming our physical appearance have at one point or another, looked for some type of “edge” or ‘key’ to the magic treasure chest which contains the secret to boosting our strength, so that we could achieve the muscle mass and definition that we desire instantly.

When it comes to lifting exercises, workout regimens and techniques, most of us ALREADY have enough knowledge to get to the next level.

Six-time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates stated on his “Blood & Guts Hardcore Mass Trainer” video that he, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lee Haney, Ronnie Coleman, and all the great bodybuilders pretty much all use the same exercises all the time.

So why do we continue searching for the newest exercises, workout techniques, and workouts from the bodybuilding magazines, and forums? Again, its because we’re looking for that magic key.

Sure, we want to keep learning, but let’s just be honest. We want RESULTS, and we want them NOW!

It’s the reason why the supplement industry is a billion dollar business. Some people have even went as far as taking anabolic steroids in the quest to get that edge, the seemingly INSTANT results.

But is there a natural stimulant that can give us the quick strength boost that we’re after?

I’m going to present you with the science behind the idea that Music can be this natural stimulant that produces an instant boost in strength, and trigger the faculties of the mind that lead to amazing physical gains, as we take a look at The Science Behind Music For Muscles.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t always the most attentive person in class as a student, so if you’re like me, don’t worry. I’m not going to bore you with a bunch of super-complicated, alien brain formulas that I don’t even understand.

But I am going to show you how music can have more of an impact on your muscle building efforts than you may realize. And I’ll even reveal how you could potentially be RUINING your progress without even realizing it. So this should be interesting.

Speaking of interesting, read to this statement…

“…when carefully selected according to scientific principles, music can enhance endurance by 15% and improve the ‘feeling states’ of exercisers…”

This statement was the result of a study led by Dr. Costas Karageorghis from Brunel University’s School of Sport and Education, and Professor Peter Terry from the University of Southern Queensland.

Dr Karageorghis further explains that:

“The synchronous application of music resulted in much higher endurance while the motivational qualities of the music impacted significantly on the interpretation of fatigue symptoms right up to the point of voluntary exhaustion.”

Now, this is just one out of a series of scientific studies that have concluded that MUSIC can provide an instant boost in productivity in the gym.

And the beauty of it is that it does NOT cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars like steroids, or expensive miracle supplements that promise to provide instant results and fail.

Here’s an interesting thought to consider:

One of the methods taught in self-defense classes is to strike an attacker at certain points of the ears, for the purpose of causing a loss of perception and balance for the attacker.

This is interesting because it shows that there is a connection between the ears and a person’s motor skills, balance, and ability to maintain control of their body.

The ear, has an effect on the movement of our body, and is also the point at which all sound enters and vibrates.

It was theorized by Dr. Alfred Tomatis that “From the very first vertebrate life, the ear had been used not only for auditory purposes, but also to regulate movement…The ear choreographs the body’s dance of balance, rhythm, and movement…the ear is the gyroscope, the CPU, the orchestra conductor of the entire nervous system…”

From this, we can begin to make sense as to why sound, music, and frequencies could have effect on the activities of our bodies.

An exercise scientist named Charles Emery at Ohio State University theorized that:

“Music may help organize the stimulus activity in your body that comes from exercise…It’s theoretical (based on developing research) that exercise provides gross stimulus, such as increased blood flow. We think exercise fires up the neurotransmitters in the brain and your hormonal system. Music can be the response to that stimulus.”

So how does music affect your exercise performance?

According to a study conducted by Nicole M. Harmon and Dr. Len Kravitz, Ph.D., program coordinator of exercise science and researcher at the University of New Mexico, there are four main ways by which music can facilitate exercise performance.

The study concluded that introducing music into a workout routine can help the person to exercise more efficiently and perform under an increased workload and time to exhaustion.

Over the years, more studies like this have been done by various professors, exercise scientists, and sports doctors at various universities around the world.

The experiments performed have confirmed the idea that music can have an effect on a person’s workout, and has led to a growth of “workout music.”

The problem is, that the workout music currently on the market seems to be geared more for aerobics and cardio exercise. But what about those of us who want to lift weights with the intention of gaining strength, mass, and definition?

Is there a right and wrong type of music to listen to while lifting weights, and could your iPod be doing more harm to your workouts than good?

The short answer is yes to all of the above. That’s right, according to scientific and physical tests, you could actually be hurting your progress with your current selection of music for your weight lifting workouts.

A study by L. Crust was published in the “Perceptual Motor Skills Journal” in 2004, where Crust examined the effects of listening to music at certain times while performing a muscular endurance test.

As part of the test, subjects were asked to hold a dumbbell at a 90 degree angle in front of the body as long as they could. (Talk about “Time Under Tension” wooo hooo!)

The results showed subjects who were exposed to music produced significantly longer endurance times.

In yet another study performed by Dr. Karageorghis where males and females were asked to hold dumbells in a cruciform position for as long as possible, results significantly improved when music was employed. The males held 15% of their body weight while females held 5% of theirs. (Average 200 pound weightlifting male = 30 pound dumbbells for the test)

This next case study is where things get really interesting…

Scientists conducted a physical strength test to determine the effect of different types of audio on a person’s muscular strength and endurance.

One investigation with college aged males and females tested stimulative energetic music, sedative relaxing music, and the control in this experiment was white noise (sound from a blank cassette tape).

The results showed that subjects who listened to the stimulative energetic music displayed significantly higher levels of strength than those who listened to any of the other types of music.

Those in the study who listened to sedative music while performing the strength test displayed significantly lower levels of strength compared to both the stimulative music, and the white noise!

WOW!

This basically means that the sedative music caused the subjects to be weaker than those who listened to no music at all. The subjects who listened to nothing but white hissing noise displayed significantly higher levels of strength than those who listened to the “wrong type of music!”

So this means that even though you may already be taking your iPod to the gym with you, if you are listening to the wrong type of music, you could actually be doing more damage to your strength and weight lifting workouts than good.

When I first stumbled upon this information, I couldn’t believe it. However, when i remembered my previous experiences in the gym years ago, it all made sense.

Now, at this point, I can hear some of already saying “I don’t listen to ‘sedative’ music when I’m workout out, so I am fine…”

But before you start feeling all warm and fuzzy about your choice of workout music, I must warn you that there is another side to this story…

The first part of this ‘other side’ begins with the fact that in the goal to increase strength and muscle mass, heart rate plays a key factor in the ability to retain muscle. This is why you don’t see bodybuilders running fast on the treadmill.

The goal is to get the heart rate into the fat burning zone and keep it there, so that you don’t sacrifice muscle gains.

If you’ve ever paid attention to marathon runners, you notice that just about all of them are very skinny and lack the muscle mass and definition that we are after.

So although you may be pumping out to that super fast song on your mp3 player, it could be causing you to perform your reps in a manner that causes your heart rate to be inconsistent with your muscle building goals.

Another problem with listening to music that is too fast and aggressive is the fact that it could be causing you to miss out on one of the most important aspects of building muscle, known as the “Time Under Tension” (TUT) principle.

This principle is widely known as the way to accomplish significant muscle hypertrophy. The longer time that you can put a muscle under stress, the better chance you have at causing the tearing of muscle fibers that inspires re-growth at a bigger size.

The fact is that most people in the gym are not getting the muscle building results that they could be getting simply because they are not putting the muscle under stress for long enough.

What makes this even more scary is the fact that if YOU are listening to music that is causing you to not take advantage of the TUT principle, then YOU are missing out on even more muscle!

No matter how well you are doing, there is a possibility that you COULD BE GETTING BETTER RESULTS, and who doesn’t want better results?

The quest for better results is the reason that we search for an extra “edge” isn’t it?

But here is the next part of that ‘other side’ that I must warn you about.

Earlier in this report, I mentioned from Dr. Len Kravitz’s (not to be confused with Lenny Kravitz the rocker) study that music affected motor coordination through the use of rhythm (see #3 above), and that it could affect performance both positively and negatively.

Well, here is something to consider…

Music that is too aggressive can have a downside that could be even more severe than sedative music, especially since the effect that it has on your workout could sneak up on you.

Usually, we would say “Hey! There is no such thing as too aggressive when lifting weights!”

However, I now have seen the light, and learned that there is such a thing as music that is too aggressive when weight lifting. I’m not going to mention genres or styles because this is not an attack on music preferences for regular recreational listening.

But, what you listen to for recreation may not necessarily be the best music to listen to for your weight training workouts.

Take this comment from Chris on FaceBook for example:

You see, if you perform your weight lifting regimen to music that is too aggressive, you most likely will perform the weightlifting exercises too aggressively, with poorer form than normal…

And this will lead to a magical word that we all want to stay away from…

INJURY!

According to Dr. Nicolas Romanov, “Your form falls apart quicker because you’re distracted and we all know where that’s going–injuries.”

When I first started performing initial tests with inventing & developing weight lifting music, I created and tested a wide range of different rhythms and styles of music. I was still under the impression that the more aggressive, the better.

However, I realized that certain styles caused me and the other users in my initial music tests to push ourselves in a way that could lead to injury, because of the feeling of needing to rush.

So I created and tweaked the music until I found the “sweet spot” for getting the highest level of intensity, without sacrificing form, quality, and risking injury. The thing is, I realized that some people are still going to do things the wrong way due to lack of knowledge.

I also realize that people are at different levels in their muscle building efforts, which is why I began testing the same songs at different tempos.

This is why I decided that it would make perfect sense to included each song at different tempos, so that users could design and customize their playlist based on what fits the type of workout they are engaging in.

Your workouts will vary depending on your goals, as well as the particular workout that you are performing on any given day.

I hope you’ve found this report helpful. I’ve given you the science behind my creation of “weight lifting music” and provided just a few of the many examples case studies performed by scientists, professors, and doctors.

If you haven’t already downloaded your FREE weight lifting song that I made to help you get the most out of your weight training workouts, then sign up for my free newsletter  to give a try in your next workout!

Until next time…

Make Your NEXT Workout, Your BEST Workout!
-Aaron B the Composer

Disclaimer: The views, facts, figures and ideas presented in this document are for information and educational purposes only, and do not guarantee any results or indications of what type of results you should expect from using music from MusicForMuscles.com or any kind of music from any source. Even though many users all over the world have experienced and reported amazingly positive results about what the music has done for their workouts, your results could vary significantly. Aaron B, MusicForMuscles.com or any affiliated parties hold no responsibility for injuries sustained from weight training or any kind of activity while listening to weight lifting music.