Kickstart Your Workout Routine With a Killer Playlist and Bluetooth Headphones

Staying active means hitting the gym, re-evaluating your health habits, and creating and sticking to a routine. Easier said than done, right? Exercising is easier and more fun when you have your favorite music to fuel your workouts. So get ready to pump up the jam.

Music and Workouts: A Match Made in Science

It’s not just hearsay – music does help you exercise. Studies prove that the rhythm of your songs influence your performance. The faster the song, the faster and harder you’ll work out. Researchers took 12 healthy individuals on stationary bicycles. The test subjects were told nothing about the rate that they needed to work out, allowing them to choose the pace themselves. During the sessions, the scientists played six different music tracks: two normal, two faster by 10%, and two slower by 10%.

The effects were obvious. Slower tempo songs led to slower pedaling, lower mileage, and dropped heart rates. The individuals also reported they didn’t like the music selection much. When the song tempo was upped, they covered more miles, increased pedal cadences, made more power with every stroke, and had higher heart rates. Even though the song was the same, just sped up, they also liked it approximately 36% more than when it was slower.

Choosing Songs for Your Workouts

The key to taking advantage of these benefits in your workouts is to choose songs with the right beats per minute, or BPM. There’s a sweet spot between 120 BPM and 140 BPM that yields the best results and can help you push further and harder. There are different ways to count the beats per minute of a song, but you can also use an online BPM calculator. After you find a bunch of your favorite tunes that fall into this range, hit the gym.

You can play your music in any order, but studies have shown that playing a song with an exceptionally high BPM rating at the beginning and close to the end of your workout will motivate you and help you finish strong.

How Bluetooth Headphones Can Help

When you work out, you do a lot of moving around. Nothing ruins the flow of your workout like having your earbuds jerked out in the middle of an exercise. Bluetooth headphones give you the freedom to listen to those exciting songs without the added frustration of dealing with dangling cords. Plus, Bluetooth headphones are often more comfortable, making it easier to get in the moment and elevate your body’s heart rate.