Should You Listen to Music During Workouts? Here’s What the Experts Say

A review published in Psychological Bulletin concluded that listening to your favorite tunes while training can enhance physical performance, reduce perceived exertion, and improve mood. (1)

That said, music selection and personal preferences are important factors affecting the effects of music on your training. (2)

Some people can’t train without music, while others like working out in complete silence. 

As someone who has trained wearing headphones for over 12 years, I have always been curious to learn if this habit was productive or if I was self-sabotaging my performance. 

I spent over 40 hours researching whether you should listen to music during workouts. In this article, I’ve curated the advice of multiple industry experts and scientific literature findings to guide your workout music listening habits. 

The Science Behind Music and Exercise

Imagine this: You are in the middle of a grueling set of squats, and your mind is begging you to stop. Just when you are about to give up and rack the weights, your favorite high-tempo song comes on the gym speakers, helping you get a couple more reps. 

Let’s break down how this works:

The Dopamine Hit

Dopamine, known as the feel-good hormone, is a chemical messenger (neurotransmitter) that works in the brain. Listening to your favorite music can give you a dopamine rush, which can motivate you to perform a particular task. 

“Music is like a legal drug for athletes. It can reduce the perception of effort significantly and increase endurance by as much as 15 percent,” said Costas Karageorghis of London’s Brunel University School of Sport and Education, who is one of the top authorities on music and exercise.

Improves Focus and Lowers Distraction

Let’s be honest. Commercial gyms can be distracting. There are heavyweights clagging around you, your gym crush training near you, and people talking about the latest and the greatest new things. 

Wearing earphones, or better yet, noise-canceling headphones, can help you get in your zone. 

Helps Set Pace

Your playlist should match the intensity of your training session. For example, you should not listen to mellow tunes while training for a sprint. The ideal playlist for your all-out sprinting sessions should comprise 150-160 BPM (beats per minute) tracks to help you achieve the maximum heart rate. (3)

Music with a particular rhythm and beats can help put you in a state of flow.

“When you’re at your max heart rate power output, your body shifts into a state of flow—an optimal zone where you’re fully focused and immersed in the task at hand,” explained Matthew Stork, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia’s School of Health and Exercise Sciences.

Streaming services like Spotify have special playlists for different workouts, including yoga, stretching, long-distance running, sprints, strength training, and HIIT. Use music strategically to boost your performance. 

Remember, listening to music on noise-canceling headphones can hinder your coordination, especially in technically demanding exercises that involve tactical feedback like double unders and clean & jerks. (4)

Reduced Perceived Fatigue

“Given that exercise is often tiresome, boring, and arduous, anything that relieves those negative feelings would be welcome,” Karageorghis said.

The right music can motivate you to get through the hardest of training sessions. High-tempo, motivating music can mask feelings of fatigue and enable you to get more done in a short period.

Ignites the Motivation To Train

Some music can be so uplifting that it can motivate you to train. For instance, every time I listen to ‘Eye of the Tiger’ from Rocky III, I want to hit the gym and lift heavy weights. 

Furthermore, music can also have therapeutic benefits.

“Music should be offered to [cardiovascular] patients more. This can help be a resource or tool to really motivate a person and make them feel more comfortable and help them be more physically active and train,” said Dr. Waseem Shami (M.D.. Interventional Cardiology and Cardiovascular Diseases). 

Choosing the Right Music For Your Workouts

Now that you understand how music can elevate your workout performance, it is time to learn about selecting the right kind of music for different types of workouts. 

Beats per minute (BMP) is the metric you should look at to find the right tunes for your training session. Here is a lowdown on the types of workouts and the suitable BPMs:

Warm-Up and Cool-Down: 95-115 BPM

This type of music is almost meditative. It is slow and calming and prompts you to be more mindful of the exercises you are doing. 

Steady-State Cardio: 120-140 BPM

Low-intensity steady-state cardio sessions last anywhere between 15 to 60 minutes. Music with 120 to 140 BPM can help you enter a repetitive, consistent flow, which can prime you for activities like jogging, cycling, and rowing. 

Strength Training: 100-140 BPM

When lifting heavy weights, you need music with a driving beat to get you through demanding reps. My strength training playlist comprises my favorite pop songs.

HIIT: 150-180+ BPM

High-intensity interval training sessions are arguably the most physically demanding. Your best bet here would be to blast out high-energy tracks that can match the intensity of your workouts.

With all that said, the best music for you will depend on your personal preferences. In my seven years of experience working as a personal trainer, I have seen numerous elite long-distance running training to meditative (95-115 BPM) music. 

Lyrics: Motivational vs. Neutral 

This is where things get complicated. 

Should you listen to songs with lyrics or stick with instrumental music? Well, this depends on personal preferences. While motivational lyrics about overcoming adversity might help you push harder, songs that explore the meaning of life might lead to a drop in training intensity. 

You must experiment with what helps you enter (and stay in) the zone. Feel free to update your playlists as your tastes evolve. 

That said, most experts recommend avoiding podcasts and audiobooks during high-intensity training, as they can divert your focus and hamper performance. 

Benefits of Not Listening To Music During Workouts

Until now, we have discussed the advantages of listening to music during workouts. Now, let’s explore how leaving your headphones at home can benefit you. 

Save Your Ears

Some gyms constantly change the volume of their music, and adjusting your headphone volume to filter out the gym tunes turns into a cat-and-mouse game. 

More often than not, you are listening to music on your headphones at more than 50 percent volume, which can lead to hearing loss. (5)

Leaving your headphones at home can prevent this entire fiasco. Furthermore, you will eventually learn to ignore the gym music completely, saving you all the music during workouts hassle. 

A Better Mind-Muscle Connection

I’ll let you in on a little secret. I always wear headphones in the gym, but the catch is that nine times out of 10, I’m not listening to music. I just put on the headphones with the active noise cancellation (ANC) turned on. 

But why is that you ask?

It does two things. First, it tells people I’m not open for a conversation. Second, the ANC mode has this amazing ability to zone out everything else. I find that it helps me develop a better mind-muscle connection. Also, the peace and quiet during rest times between sets is just pristine. 

Not listening to music during workouts will help you pay closer attention to your body’s signals. You are less likely to ego lift while you are not listening to blood-pumping music, significantly lowering injury risk. 

Competition Prep

Most powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting, and strongman competitions don’t allow athletes to compete while wearing headphones. Plus, there is usually no background music. Competitive strength sports athletes should ideally stimulate prep conditions to prepare their minds and bodies for the show. 

However, feel free to listen to music between sets to psyche yourself up. If you are a powerlifting fan, you’ve probably seen athletes step on stage while wearing their headphones and take it off momentarily before their lifts. 

Research shows that listening to your favorite tunes right before a one-rep max attempt can improve muscle power explosiveness and strength endurance. (6)

Dr. Andrew Huberman (professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford University School of Medicine) chimed in on the subject in a YouTube video. 

“One of the most interesting things about the scientific literature on listening to music during workout shows that if people listen to music that tends to be faster, more upbeat, like roll and roll music in between bouts of exertion can indeed enhance performance than what is observed when people listen to music throughout.” — Andrew Huberman

Conclusion

Should You Listen to Music During Workouts? Well, it depends on your personal preferences. Scientific evidence has shown that listening to music during workouts can boost motivation, improve performance, and reduce perceived effort.

However, you must choose a playlist that matches your training demands. Choose a curated playlist or invest the time in building your own to make the most of your workouts. Experiment with different types of music until you find what works best for you.

References

1. Terry, P. C., Karageorghis, C. I., Curran, M. L., Martin, O. V., & Parsons-Smith, R. L. (2020). Effects of music in exercise and sport: A meta-analytic review. Psychological bulletin, 146(2), 91–117. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000216
2. Ballmann CG. The Influence of Music Preference on Exercise Responses and Performance: A Review. J Funct Morphol Kinesiol. 2021;6(2):33. Published 2021 Apr 8. doi:10.3390/jfmk6020033
3. Thakare AE, Mehrotra R, Singh A. Effect of music tempo on exercise performance and heart rate among young adults. Int J Physiol Pathophysiol Pharmacol. 2017;9(2):35-39. Published 2017 Apr 15.
4. Dan-Goor, E., & Samra, M. (2012). Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo after use of noise-canceling headphones. American journal of otolaryngology, 33(3), 364–366. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjoto.2011.08.012
5. Welch, D., Law, A., & Dirks, K. (2014). Hearing loss with exercise and noise exposure. In 11th International Congress on Noise as a Public Health Problem (ICBEN), Japan.
6. Ballmann, C. G., Favre, M. L., Phillips, M. T., Rogers, R. R., Pederson, J. A., & Williams, T. D. (2021). Effect of Pre-Exercise Music on Bench Press Power, Velocity, and Repetition Volume. Perceptual and motor skills, 128(3), 1183–1196. https://doi.org/10.1177/00315125211002406

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