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15.03.2020

When music reduces muscle strength

This will be the last time we write about the performance-enhancing effect of music. Enough is enough. The reason we bore you one more time with a post on this topic is a study conducted by researchers at Brunel University in London. According to their research, some some kinds of music can reduce muscle strength. Our readers should know this, we immediately thought.

Music and strength training
Let's summarize what we already know. Music is particularly suitable for improving endurance efforts, but strength athletes can also benefit from it. Especially music with a lot of beats per minute [170-190 bpm] is effective.

The performance improvement of music is related to the volume: the higher the volume, the greater the performance-enhancing effect. A condition for promoting performance through music is that you can appreciate the music in question.

Study
The researchers had 50 subjects squeeze a gripper as hard as possible on different occasions. The researchers determined how much strength the subjects could develop.

Before the subjects had their hand strength measured, the researchers got the subjects to listen to stimulating music - to Let me be your fantasy [135 bpm] by Baby D from 1992 [YouTube] - and to calming music - to We Have All The Time In The World [90 bpm] by Louis Armstrong from 1969 [YouTube].

On a third occasion, the subjects listened to noise [white noise].

Results
In the men [first figure below] as well as in the women [second figure], calming music reduced the amount of strength that the subjects could develop, while stimulating music actually increased muscle strength.

The figure above refers to both men and women. The table below tells which associations are significant.

Music like Louis Armstrong's may not be suitable for getting you to perform better during workouts, but it might help you recover. You can read more about this here.

Source:
Percept Mot Skills. 1996;83(3 Pt 2):1347-52.

More:
Music after your workout speeds recovery 12.03.2020
Music with more volume for more strength 08.03.2020

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The music you love improves your workout If the manager of your gym consistently plays music that you don't like, then consider training with earphones in the future - allowing you to listen to music that you do appreciate.	Music with 190 bpm improves your workouts The performance-enhancing effect of music manifests itself especially in endurance training, but strength athletes can benefit from it as well.	Music improves sports performance Sports scientists at Brunel University did tests with 26 swimmers aged 18-23 and published the results in Psychology of Sport and Exercise.