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Welcome to 2008 Fitness Freaks!! I hope all of your fitness resolutions are alive and well.

The first thing you may have noticed is that I have changed the title of this email to “Fitness Tip of the Month” instead of “Fitness Tip of the Week” which you may have become accustomed to (and has become a brand as such). Well this year I am going to give you less fitness tips than last year. Think of it this way, we are now in a bear (stock) market, which means you could get a lot of good returns on your investment if you pick the quality stocks now. Well by reducing the volume I am increasing the quality of my Fitness tips, so if you invest your time in reading them, you will see good returns (on your fitness gains of course) over the next 6-12 months (or however long I decide to keep sending them).

There should probably be a disclaimer right about here but as I am not an economist or broker, lets move on shall we?

This month we will look at the influence of music on your fitness. I have been reading a lot of great articles on this lately so I thought it would be good to share.

It is no surprise that music has a positive influence on your training. I mean have you ever been in an aerobics class? Without music it would just be some skinny (almost pre pubescent) woman yelling at you to do things that your body clearly was not designed to do. With music, it all seems to make sense, right? Right.

The latest research shows that the right music can lift your athletic performance by up to 20%!! The nerds have found that athletes who ran while listening to “synchronous” music (where the beats fit with the rhythm of body movement), could endure a fifth more exertion than those without.

There are three ways in which music can help your fitness
  • In repetitive exercise, such as running, it can narrow your attention and as a consequence divert attention away from the sensation of fatigue.
  • Music alters arousal levels and can be used as a form of stimulant prior to exercise or as a sedative to calm over-anxious trainers before activities such as yoga.
  • By using music rhythm and human movement to increase endurance, it can also be used to enhance the learning of movement skills.
There is a fourth way that music helps your fitness that I have come up with all by myself and I will be submitting a paper to the relevant intellectual magazines on the topic
  • It helps relieve boredom when training (Maloney, C 2008)
Another way music can be used is for pacing purposes. My former flatmate planned her City 2 Surf run last year based on a play list she had created on her iPod. She knew exactly where she needed to be on the course when each song ended so that she could achieve a specific time at the end of the race. It worked, she came 6th.

Here is the kicker from all the research. It says that every individual responds to music differently. Basically saying that if you like Barry Manilow, a bit of Metallica is not going to improve your exercise performance (they got a grant for that?).

But the research is right in saying that your music should vary depending on what type of exercise you are doing. Personally I like a bit of angry Rage Against the Machine when lifting heavy weights, then switch to some Ministry of Sound dance music for a run on the treadmill, then some Jack Johnson whilst cooling and stretching down. But each to their own, whatever works for you.

Here is something that may help. It is call PODRUNNER and it is free weekly updated workout music for runners, cyclists, spinners, walkers, or anyone who needs fixed-tempo exercise mixes to download to their iPod.

Til next month,

Chris

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