Listening To Music And Videos While You Workout Can Distract You From How Hard You’re Working, Improving Performance

Listening to music or watching a video while working out can distract you from how tough your routines truly are, according to a report that appeared in the Journal of Sport and Health Science.

The study, led by researchers for the University of North Carolina, assessed whether listening to music, watching a video, or a combination of both affects the attentional focus and ratings of perceived exertion when a person engages in a high-intensity workout. When a person has an attentional focus, he or she focuses on bodily sensations, such as breathing patterns, rhythm in movement, feelings of fatigue in the muscles, and heart rate.

Fifteen healthy men were recruited by the researcher for the trials. In the first session, the participants finished a maximal fitness test to determine the most suitable workload for the high-intensity workout in the following sessions. After four days, they performed 20 minutes of a high-intensity workout either in a no-treatment control condition, while listening to music, watching a video, or a combination of listening to music and watching a video. The researchers recorded the participants’ attentional focus, ratings of perceived exertion, heart rate, and distance covered every four minutes of the exercise.

The study showed that a combination of listening to music and watching video led to significantly lower ratings of perceived exertion. This meant that participants believed that they exerted less than what they were actually doing. Moreover, this led to a significantly more dissociative focus compared to the other interventions. Simply put, music and video distracted them from how hard they were exercising.

In conclusion, the findings of the study suggested that listening to music and watching a video while doing a high-intensity workout may lower a person’s perceived exertion and distract them from how hard their workout is.

“The findings of this study make an important extension to the literature by demonstrating that music and video can be used in combination to reduce RPE [ratings of perceived exertion] even when exercising at a high intensity,” the researchers wrote. (MORE)

Source: NaturalNews