Every group class has at least one of them…
One persnickety Music “Nazi”. The Music “Nazi” is the person who freaks out mid-conditioning workout if the wrong song comes on, if the volume drops below a certain pitch, or heaven forbid, if the music temporarily stops altogether.
When the song isn’t reaching this person’s threshold of acceptability, you’ll see an unmistakably distressed look grow across his/her face. Then, for some reason unexplainable by science, his/her body seems to become suddenly paralyzed, utterly incapable of performing even one more deadlift or burpee until the correct song at the perfect volume is peacefully restored.
And he/she will do anything to make this happen.
Panting from the workout, this person’s head on a swivel, he/she aggressively searches for the coach. He/she throws his/her hands in the air and breaks into what can only be called a frustrated plea for help.
“Music! Music!” he/she yells.
“This is terrible!”
“Fix the music!”
“Please!”
I get it. Working out in dead silence isn’t exactly motivating. But, believe it or not, it is very possible to perform deadlifts or burpees—or even pull-ups or box jumps or rowing or wall balls—to annoying pop songs, to love songs, to an acoustic guitar serenading someone in the corner, and even in total and utter silence.
OK, enough facetiousness.
I like to post about revealing new health, fitness or nutrition research (in case you haven’t noticed), and so I decided to search for evidence of there being a correlation between music and the ability to workout. No dice.
That being said, there has been research done on the psychological effect of working out to a beat, and there certainly is evidence that people will workout longer when there’s music playing, mostly because the music acts as a welcome distraction from the task at hand. Read more here about this pretty common sense research about being moved and motivated by music.
So if you’re in the group of people—the Music “Nazis”—who feel as though, psychologically, the only way you can get through the workout is when your own personal playlist is blasting through the gym, then consider what this might say about your psychology, or mental strength, perhaps.
We often talk about preparing you physically, mentally, and emotionally for that matter, for all the challenges life throws your way. If you’re so sensitive and finicky about creating your ideal environment for each workout in the gym, then how are you ever going to handle unexpected challenges in life? Just saying…
To toughen you all up, and in light of the above, I am proclaiming the month of September SILENT WORKOUT MONTH!!
Oh I’m just kidding! We will continue to play music. But seriously, you should try to learn how do burpees in less than ideal playlist conditions.