ON FITNESS: TUNED IN

Seattle Times – Oct 22, 2006 – Richard Seven – Missy Boone listens to music on her iPod during her running workouts. Studies suggest that listening to music while exercising improves the results.

Dance with a Box: Tricia Gomez, designs and markets “Hip Hop in a Box,” a way to teach movement to children. It comes with DVDs, CDs, a workbook and flash cards. Gomez, a former Laker Girl, has been a dancer for 28 years and opened her first studio at 17. Her product is aimed mainly at children younger than 10. She says it is about giving kids direction without squashing their creativity. (www.danceinabox.com).

MY FIRST INSTINCT was to make fun of “Drums Alive” when I saw it at a fitness conference in Las Vegas. The inventor, Carrie Ekins, was flanked by two slim women in matching black Spandex and wristbands. They were using drumsticks to pound anchored fitness balls. The ballroom was packed and all the participants were mimicking every move, slapping the orbs, stepping here, twirling there, pounding balls with rhythmic precision.

A marching band with nowhere to go, I thought.

But as I sat back and watched, I recalled what powerful things drumming and music are. The focus was dead-on. The louder Ekins shouted over her headset the louder the crowd responded.

I’ve always appreciated the power of music as a motivator and leader, but “Drums Alive” led me to look a bit closer and realize it is more than a distraction, which is how I tend to use it.

Stacey Richards, fitness product manager for Power Music, estimates the U.S. and Canadian group-exercise market at about $15 million a year.

“There were 40 million club members in the U.S. as of 2004 and 50 million iPods sold by Apple,” Richards says. “Put the two together and you have a very large potential market for personal exercise music.”

Power Music is one of the largest and more established vendors. But there are many. At the same convention, I saw six music companies showing their wares, exhibiting titles like: “Feel My Energy #1” (145 bpm), “Ticket To Ride” (134 bpm) and “La Cumbianchera” (136 bpm). BPM is a measure of musical tempo or speed of a song. A song at 120 BPM contains two beats each second. The BPM is tailored to a specific activity. For example, a step workout is safest and most effective in the 120-to-130 bpm range, and a cardio floor workout can be anywhere between 130 and 160 bpm. A bpm in the 122-to-140 range is great for mid- to fast-paced workouts, such as walking, elliptical and cardio machines.

“It’s about body mechanics and matching tempo to the movement,” says Richards. “The effectiveness of the music in the workout will depend on the energy of the individual song choices, the flow and energy of the song order and the ideal beats per minute related to the intended use or workout.”

Seattle’s Karen Moyer uses Power Music (www.powermusic.com) tapes to power the spinning classes she teaches at her Magnolia studio, Go Legs (www.golegs.net).

“My classes are all about the music,” she says. “It gets me and everyone else excited and into it. It makes all the difference.”
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Does it really make a difference? Some studies suggest so. One by Farleigh Dickinson University, tracking 41 overweight or obese women, found that women who used portable CD players on their walking workouts lost more weight and body fat than those who didn’t use the devices over a six-month period.

“Walking to music seemed to really motivate the women in our study to get out there and stick with the commitment they made,” wrote researcher Christopher Capuano.

Another study looked at the effect of different music tempos on athletic intensity and performance. Subjects pedaled a stationary bicycle for an hour while listening to music of varying tempo. The subjects were free to ride as hard or easily as they felt. Predictably, speed and power output increased as the tempos did.

The music companies emphasize the optimal fitness music beat, but many of us tend to be more informal. I always listen to an iPod when I walk or jog. It distracts me. I forget about the chore and drift off. I also subtly ramp up with faster songs and chill on the slower. You could call it my own informal and unscientific bit of interval training.

Sports performance psychologist John F. Murray uses music with his athletes. It inspires, soothes and provides focus. But too often, he said, we use it strictly to tune out, which is not always a good thing. Sometimes, you need focus. You also need to be in touch with your limits on each particular day or outing. You can’t let Bob Dylan, of all people, to push you too far. Also, turn the sound down a smidge and save your eardrums. Also, don’t get so taken with the music that you forget your surroundings. Cars and creeps are out there.

Dr. John F. Murray is a sports psychologist and clinical psychologist providing sports psychology and counseling services based in Palm Beach, Florida.