Why music makes a difference when you exercise

Across 139 global studies - running, walking, cycling, strength, high intensity, weight-bearing and non-weight bearing - Music:

• Improved physical performance – some music tempos worked better than others
• Enhanced how people felt - any music tempo
• Reduced a feeling of exertion - any music tempo
• Reduced oxygen consumption - any music tempo

There is a long history of using music to enhance effort. Think of drummers at the front of canoes, encouraging rowers to paddle harder and faster. Why, for thousands of years over many cultures has music been an important motivator for movement?

• It's psychological - benefits include enhanced effective responses, flow and reduced anxiety
• It's psycho-physical - reduced rating of perceived physical exertion
• It's physiological - improved physiological efficiency

These combined create an outcome of improved performance in speed, endurance and strength.

Professor Peter C. Terry shared these fascinating results at the 2023 AUSActive Active Health Summit in collaboration with OneMusic in July to audiences in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Fitness businesses - outdoors or indoors - need permission to play music. The easiest way to get that permission is a licence from OneMusic.

OneMusic licences permission to play the vast majority of the world's repertoire (collection) of commercially-released music. The money from licence fees is returned to music creators.