How music can boost your workout – and the best songs to try

My workout playlists are the product of so many pet theories and half-forgotten experiments they sometimes catch me unawares. Earlier this year, I found myself performing callisthenics in the scorching heat of Vietnam to Noёl Coward’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen. I smiled during a set of pull-ups, which is rare.

The search for the perfect music to enhance exercise has been an obsession for around 30 years. In the 1990s, I remember trying to run with a ‘jog-proof’ portable compact disc player the size of a small dinner plate.

Research tells us music can enhance motivation, dial down discomfort and improve performance. I have tried metal, techno, punk, ambient, classical, familiar, fresh and random. And occasionally, Noёl Coward.

It turns out I was running a parallel exploration to that of Professor Costas Karageorghis of Brunel University. Prof Karageorghis has been investigating the ways in which exercise and music interact for decades. My amateur intuition met his academic rigour in one of the most fascinating interviews I’ve ever conducted. He applied his scientific process to a conundrum millions of us wrestle with every day. Finally, I understand how to assemble the perfect workout playlist.

Coming off the sofa

My workout begins at the moment I need to launch myself out of whatever sofa or office chair has me in its seductive grip and switch from sedentary and passive to someone with goals and gumption. I’m looking here for a track that will remind me of the qualities I will need to run, lift, punch or kick.  Prof Karageorghis says what is required is something slow and heroic that evokes the right mood.

“I might use a track like Chariots of Fire by Vangelis. It’s slow, inspiring and it conjures imagery of Olympians of old striding across the sands of St Andrews in their long white shorts.” He explains that there are a number of factors in the way music can influence our workout and one of the most powerful is emotional connection. Someone of a different age, someone unfamiliar with the film, would respond quite differently to Vangelis’ slice of electronica. Playing with your own past and scanning your memories is a great way to create a mood. For me Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, which I associate with that infamous helicopter scene in Apocalypse Now, plays a similar role.