From lifting your mood to blurring the limits of fatigue, music and the right playlist doesn’t just soundtrack your workouts – it changes the way you move
WORDS: Joe Phelan
Most of us can’t imagine hitting the gym without our headphones. There’s something almost miraculous about how the right playlist can inject energy into a sluggish warm-up, or how a perfect beat seems to sync with our stride on a long run.
We’ve all felt that surge when a favourite track kicks in mid-workout: suddenly the weights feel lighter, the pace steadier, the final rep within reach. But what exactly is happening when music unlocks those hidden reserves? Why does one track make us move differently from another?
The answers reveal a fascinating interplay between ears, brain, and muscles that goes far beyond habit or distraction. Elements like rhythm, tempo, and melody don’t just influence our mood – they can shape the pace, intensity, and efficiency of movement, often without us even realising it.
This deep relationship between music and physical performance involves intricate, subconscious interactions across sound, mind, and body – connections researchers are only beginning to fully understand.
Why the right playlist affects performance
Music doesn’t just make exercise more enjoyable – it can actually change the way we experience physical effort. Research shows that listening to music during workouts can reduce the perception of exertion by as much as 12%, while simultaneously increasing endurance by up to 15%.
But why is our response to music so powerful?
Part of the answer lies deep in our evolutionary history. As human beings, we’re hardwired to respond to rhythm and repetition. In early societies, coordinated movement — whether in hunting, warfare or rituals — was often accompanied by rhythmic sound. And this connection between sound and movement still exists today.
One of the most important mechanisms at play is distraction. When we exercise, our brains receive internal cues signalling fatigue – heavy breathing, muscle soreness, rising heart rate. Music provides an external stimulus that competes for our attention, effectively diverting our focus away from these discomfort signals. The result? We feel like we’re working less hard than we actually are.
Costas Karageorghis, professor of sport and exercise psychology at Brunel University and author of Applying Music in Exercise and Sport, is a leading voice in exploring the deep connection between music and movement.
“When we listen to music during submaximal exercise, we observe a reduction in ‘exercise consciousness’ – it feels less hard, and a tad more pleasurable,” Karageorghis says.
“Music reduces the degree of connectivity across somatosensory areas of the brain, meaning that fatigue-related messages are not communicated to the same degree as when exercising in silence.”
The impact of music varies with exercise type and how it’s used. Rhythmic, repetitive activities like running or rowing seem to benefit most when movements sync to the beat. This is known as synchronous use. For less rhythmical tasks such as weightlifting, the right playlist still has the power to motivate, but offers fewer coordination benefits.
“In a study with recreationally active participants, we found that syncing treadmill exercise to a musical beat improved endurance performance by 10-15%,” Karageorghis says. “In activities like running or cycling, synchronising movements with music can enhance physiological efficiency by making the body more energy efficient — up to 6-7% — compared to exercising without music. This helps the body ‘lock in’ to the beat, improving timing and flow.”
Heartbeats, rhythms and real-time response
The influence of rhythm extends far beyond syncing steps or reps. Music interacts dynamically with the body’s internal systems — including heart rate, breathing patterns, and even the electrical activity of muscles and the brain — creating a complex physiological and psychological response during exercise.
Christopher Ballmann, an associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and an expert in exercise physiology and music psychology, explains that this connection between music and the body can help athletes enter what’s often called a ‘flow state’ – a zone where movement feels effortless, focus sharpens, and motivation peaks.
When this alignment occurs, the body begins to move more efficiently, with smoother coordination and a greater sense of ease.
“Music causes profound physiological and psychological changes during exercise,” Ballmann says. “From a physiological standpoint, music can change your heart rate and increase the amount of force developed by your muscles. From a psychological perspective, it instills greater feelings of motivation and can make the exercise feel easier.
“The combined effect is often higher training intensity and better exercise adherence, which can lead to greater improvements and results over time.”
Ballmann’s research has highlighted the critical role of music preference in this process. He has found that listening to music that you enjoy doesn’t just make workouts more pleasant – it actively increases motivation, pushing you to work harder for longer. Conversely, music that you dislike or find distracting can undermine effort and reduce performance.
“When building a playlist, it’s first important to consider the goal of the activity you are performing,” Ballmann notes. “Certain activities may require a great amount of effort, while others need stamina. You may need to consider different music choices for each activity. There’s even evidence to suggest that choosing music you find relaxing after exercise may aid short-term recovery.
“Above all, everyone has their own taste and preference when it comes to music. Whether you like to listen to heavy metal or classical music when you exercise, ensuring you’re listening to music that you prefer will give you the best chance of getting the most out of your playlist.”
Pushing through the pain: Music in high-intensity exercise
While much of the research on music and movement has focused on steady-state aerobic exercise, a growing number of studies are examining its effects during more intense workouts.
Dr. Matthew Stork, a Senior Research Scientist at lululemon, has found that even during high-intensity workouts like sprints or circuits — where discomfort is hard to ignore — music can still enhance performance.
“Music has the potential to put you in a spot mentally or emotionally where you can perform in a more optimal way,” Stork says. “There’s a combination of physiological and psychological factors — brain activation, hormonal and arousal changes, attentional focus, motivational factors — that can collectively shift people into an optimal zone for exercise.”
In high-intensity scenarios, music may act less as a distraction, and more as a motivational cue, boosting readiness before a workout or helping someone push through their final reps. The perfect playlist can, as a result, make effort feel more purposeful.
Stork’s research has found that music can even lead to tangible changes in how the body behaves under physical stress. In a 2019 study, participants performing the same workout under different audio conditions — music, podcast, and silence — exhibited higher heart rates and power output when music was played.
“This was intriguing considering participants were doing the exact same workout each time,” Stork says. “The elevated heart rate responses may be explained by the innate human tendency to alter the frequency of one’s biological rhythms toward that of musical rhythms. This may have played a role in the bioeffects of music on heart rate responses.”
For those who find exercise dull or hard to stick with, Stork points to a range of behavioural techniques that can help people engage more consistently, such as using visual cues, real-time biofeedback from wearables, or setting implementation intentions (for example, “If it’s raining outside, then I’ll follow a YouTube workout inside instead”).
Music, too, can be a powerful tool in this context – not necessarily by enhancing these strategies, but by acting as a motivating and enjoyable element in its own right. Ultimately, it’s not just about what works for most people – it’s about finding what works for you.
“Our research has shown that participants tend to report greater pleasure over the course of HIIT protocols and had significantly higher post-exercise enjoyment scores in the music condition compared to the control conditions.
“At the end of the day, music is a simple — yet powerful — strategy that can enhance your exercise and make it more enjoyable. And we know that people who participate in exercise because they enjoy it are more likely to keep doing it.”
By tapping into both emotional and physiological pathways, music becomes a powerful behavioural tool – not just to enhance performance, but to transform how people feel about exercise itself.
Personalisation and the power of preference
While rhythm and tempo set the pace, it’s personal taste and emotional connection that truly unlock music’s motivational power during exercise.
Andrew Danso, a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre of Excellence in Music, Mind, Body and Brain, University of Jyväskylä, Finland, explains that music activates some of the oldest parts of the brain, triggering natural responses that link movement and pleasure. This deep-rooted connection helps explain why people often feel more motivated and focused when exercising to music they enjoy.
“Both music and sport involve similar psychological and behavioural coordination,” Danso explains. “And, as we start working out with music, it often distracts us from challenging exercise due to the rewarding experience it creates. For many people, this is connected with their movement, as it feels good to keep moving along with it. I see these effects being crucial to potential exercise adherence.”
Studies consistently show that music improves both physical and cognitive performance. Familiar tracks can sharpen concentration, while new songs add excitement and energy. Unsurprisingly, elite athletes frequently harness this by crafting pre-event playlists that put them in the right mental state for competition.
Like Ballmann, Danso recognises that personalisation is essential to unlocking music’s full benefits. And he’s taking this concept a step further by working to develop Personalised Interactive Music Systems (PIMS) – technology that dynamically adapts music to an individual’s real-time physiological and psychological state, enhancing motivation and exercise performance.
“PIMS are often systems embedded into wearables. Practically, they can suggest a high energy track based on your exertion level to get you beyond a challenging workout moment, and then suggest an easier track when you’re recovering post-workout,” Danso says. “Until now, we’ve always had to adjust our movements to fit the music, but PIMS flips that, adapting the music to follow us instead.”
Early findings suggest that tempo-responsive music can boost both exercise duration and enjoyment, making workouts feel easier and more engaging. By syncing music to the user’s performance — rather than asking them to source a track that fits the situation — PIMS may help improve motivation and long-term adherence.
Danso is also part of MPOWER, an international research project exploring how music can be used more effectively to support physical activity and enhance exercise experiences. The project aims to test how specific musical features influence performance, recovery, and long-term participation, taking a deeper, more data-driven approach than has previously been attempted.
“For the first time that we know of, we’ll be examining how music promotes a physically active lifestyle internationally. We’ll be testing music’s efficacy to support participation in sport and exercise, and how music can be implemented to improve performance and recovery,” Danso says.
“One area we’re looking to explore is which specific musical features influence the tracks people choose for exercise. So, for example, what is it about our Spotify playlists that we’re using for exercise? Is it the beat? The tempo? The melody? This type of analysis has never been done in relation to sport and exercise, and we’re thrilled to contribute this to the scientific community.”
The evidence is clear: music doesn’t just make workouts more enjoyable – it can genuinely enhance performance. Not through magic, but by creating powerful synchronisation between body, brain, and beat – often beneath our conscious awareness.
As researchers continue to uncover how sound influences movement, one thing is certain: the right playlist isn’t just background noise. It’s a legitimate training tool, and learning how to use it could be the key to unlocking performance you didn’t know you had.
