30 participants exercised on a treadmill while listening to a selection of motivational rock or pop music, including Queen, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Madonna. They were asked to keep in strict time with the beat.
The findings of the study by Brunel University’s School of Sport and Education found that music can enhance endurance by 15% and improve the ‘feeling states’ of exercisers, helping them to derive much greater pleasure from the task.
The lead researcher Dr Costas Karageorghis has chosen the music to be played at 17 locations to accompany 12,500 runners during the Run To The Beat half marathon in Greenwich, south-east London, on Sunday.
The research is to be published in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology.
neil.durham@haymarket.com
Brunel University's research
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