Music

[tonpaulerc]

Does the music that you listen to make you work harder do you think? I like to listen to some fast paced music while I work out. If it is quiet or I have slow music on I just can not get into my zone.

[5kgLifter]

Music does make a difference; it helps you stay focussed during cardio and the faster the beat of the music the harder you will work out.

[Off Road]

I seldomly listen to music when I workout. Sometimes I'll put on some good punk, but 99% of the time it's just me and the clanking of iron.

[Tannhauser]

Hang on, hup hup.

There. I'm on my soapbox. Right.

Nothing in lifting infuriates me more than the whole music issue. See, to me, music isn't something you have on as an adjunct to an activity. Music is something you listen to. I have zero ability to filter it out - if it's on, I'm listening to it.

I spend all of my time when I'm working out listening to someone else's taste in music. Which invariably sucks, because (a) gym owners aren't generally music afficionados (b) most of the clientele aren't either.

In my old gym, I was bombarded by the same fifteen-twenty songs in rotation. This was chart music,all the latest vapid, blank-faced autotuned poptarts. Nursery room porridge with every last atom of soul systematically removed from it by automatons, laser-targeting sex and rebellion at clueless teens.

So I stopped going there.

The new gym's music is even worse: Jay-Z and Dizzee Rascal and Eminem in an endless loop. I love the gym, but the owners, bless 'em, have yet to discover that there is a whole universe of music outside of this tiny, tiny little corner. It's so boring and pedestrian and lacking in any kind of ambition. The lyrics are simple-minded doggerel, prurient and ugly - urban poetry, my fat arse - full of faux resentment. Harmony and melody - at least you get those in pop - are pared back. Plenty of rhythm, of course, but even that's mind-numbingly dull.

I watch other people working out, indifferent to all this thudding nonsense around them, whistling along out of time and out of tune, and I think: I wish I could be like you for a few hours a week. I wish I just didn't care what was on, so long as the tempo suited me.

Music makes my visits to the gym an ordeal, and I sometimes cut workouts short so I won't have to listen to 'Ninety-nine problems but the bitch ain't one' again.

[5kgLifter]

I have to add, on the music front, I only ever use it for cardio work, never for lifting or KB work; and, of course, I get to select my own CD, working out at home has it's advantages.

I've noticed with lifting, music interferes, for some strange reason it messes with my focus.

[BendtheBar]

I need to squat or deadlift to Slayer or Swashbuckle. It's a mental tick.

[Tannhauser]

At my old gym, one time when the music went off, I shouted to the owner:

"QUICK, PUT SOME MUSIC BACK ON!! I'M STARTING TO THINK!!"

He didn't have a clue what I was talking about.

[BendtheBar]

I am a pretty low key lifter but when the big 90% sets come on I need driving music.

[Tannhauser]

Just to add that I'm a total snob when it comes to music, so I know my views tend to be a bit extreme.

Vince Gironda never allowed any music played in his gyms. He said it affected concentration, and that a gym should be 'quiet, like a temple or a church.' Yeah.

[Chillen]

What a bland world it would be, if all of our tastes in music were the same, and the reasons we listen to music were also the same, but in keeping our differing personalities/viewpoints at the same time.

There is a variety in music because our tastes are different. Likewise the way one may approach, view, and get from music can be different. Just because I may dislike a song, or type of music, doesn't necessarily make it bad or poor music. I realize that my opinion on music and my opinion on the types of music I like, is not the end all, beat all, as compared to others in what they like/dislike. This is the beauty of music.

If we get something of "good value" from music we like, it doesnt matter, what someone else thinks to contrary. I certainly do not care. If music motivates one in the gym and they work hard, I see no problem; actually it is an independent benefit of value.

In addition, if one doesn't like listening to music as they workout, and they get to the gym and work out, this too has independent value. If it works, it doesn't need any fixn'. If working out at a gym and the music (to them) sucks, get ear plugs, or take action to remedy the complication without impeding ones workout, anothers personal right, or causing aggression.