The Effect Of Synchronous And Asynchronous Music On Treadmill Running Performance Of Recreational Athletes

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Running with synchronous music tempo is associated with positive physiological and psychological effects that improve running performance as expressed by time to exhaustion. Changes in the music tempo may increase physiological efficiency (slow tempo) or improve motivation and mood (fast tempo), but there is no conclusive evidence whether asynchronous music tempo can influence distance covered or time to exhaustion. PURPOSE: To investigate the effect of different music tempi on running performance, force and cadence profiles of recreational athletes. METHODS: Six college students (age = 21.2± 3yr; weight = 75.4± 12kg; height = 179.5± 10cm) participated in the study. The participants were tested five times over a period of three weeks. During the first visit, lactate threshold speed (LTS) was assessed via blood samples. During the second visit participants run at 5% above their LTS (3.5±0.4m/s) with no auditory stimuli until exhaustion. During the last three visits participants were randomly assigned to run on an instrumented treadmill in three different tempo conditions until exhaustion: slow, matched and fast. Time to exhaustion, vertical ground reaction forces (vGRF) and cadence were calculated through Matlab. RESULTS: A one-way repeated ANOVA (4 conditions) showed that there was a main effect of music, with the no music condition resulting in a decrease in time to exhaustion by 18-21% when compared to all the music conditions, but no significant differences among the 3 music conditions. The vGRF during running at slow tempo (2.58 BW) were significantly lower when compared to fast tempo (2.62 BW), whereas there was an increase in cadence between slow (167 steps/min) and fast (170 steps/min) tempo conditions. CONCLUSION: The findings indicate that music – in general – has a positive effect on running performance, while asynchronous tempi can only cause significant but subtle changes (less than 2%) in the force and cadence profiles.