Last week's closing video of the Doctor Who theme (admit it, you listened to it and loved it, right?), got me thinking a bit more about music. I like some pre-race tuneage, basically whatever I'm liking at the time. Often some Muse, maybe some White Panda, recently I've gone back and found some music from some classic Rally driving games I used to play that rock. Perhaps there's a way I can enhance my performance with my music, not just from a 'pass the time' standpoint, but from an actual psychosomatic perspective.

So, as I was toodling around on the internet for recent articles, I found this one:

Effects of synchronous music on treadmill running among elite triathletes

Peter C. Terrya, Costas I. Karageorghisb, Alessandra Mecozzi Sahaa, Shaun D’Auriac, Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, Volume 15, Issue 1, January 2012, Pages 52–57

I'm sure many of us having listened to music while running. I've also noticed how some songs feel like they have a slower or faster tempo depending on the speed I'm running at. It apparently has been well established that music, has an impact on endurance, perceived exercise, 'exercise-induced feeling states', among other things. The authors of this study felt that one thing was missing was researching the impact on more elite runners, since many of the other studies just used walking.

The subjects in this study ran a progressive test to exhaustion, lasting about 20 minutes. They did it three times, once with "motivational music", once with "neutral music" and no music. Neutral music was identified using some music inventory, which I presume just means music that really doesn't have an effect on a person, positive or negative (its called the Brunel Music Rating Inventory-2, if you really want to know). The other important aspect of the music was that it was synchronous; that the tempo of the track matched up to the subject's stride rate. During the test, the authors measured a variety of physiological data, as well as self-reported mood states from pre- to post- testing.

In the end, the study seemed to find mixed physiological results. Each of the three music conditions occasionally had the optimal effect. Time to exhaustion was significantly higher with music than not, but average VO2 and running economy was higher without music than with, though the difference was not much more than 2% (which, since it kind of contradicts the authors hypothesis, they somewhat brush off!).

Awww yeah, let's get ready to race.

The mood state data, though, is more intriguing. The subjects showed an increase in depression, anger, fatigue, and confusion, and a decrease in tension and vigour, all of which could reasonably be expected. In almost all of these cases, the tests that involved music had a positive effect on these post-test mood states. All of the negative moods states were lessened with music, all of the positive mood states were impacted less by the exercise. In particular, motivational music had the greatest positive effect, often at least twice as much impact as neutral music.

Clearly, with music, and particularly motivational music, athletes during exercise are driven to go a little bit longer and harder, and feel better about themselves and their workout afterwards. The lack of really solid physiological data suggest that the impact of music is more psychological than physical.

So, what could this mean for orienteers?

Clearly, it is entirely impractical to run with headphones. It would likely distract to much of one's attention away from navigating and more to announcing that "you otha brothas can't deny".

This has nothing to do with the topic, but was the first image that came up when I searched "Orienteering headphones"

I had also hoped that the fact that the music was synchronous would have some sort of positive impact on running efficiency. My thinking was that perhaps by listening to some up-tempo music that matched your ideal racing turnover, you could better prepare for the race by accurately simulating your racing form. Unfortunately, that wasn't really discussed in this study. Perhaps an experiment is in order?

I think, though, it does suggest that at least, pre-race, some motivational music might help. And not just while sitting around waiting to start, but, during warm-up, or listening to a quick tune within the last 10 minutes. The impact it had on reducing tension, depression, anger, fatigue, and confusion, while increase vigour was pretty resounding. Yes, the results in the study were found while listening to music throughout the entire test, so the effect may be significantly diminished. But its worth exploring. If you find you're a nervous wreck at the start and it impacts your first or second control, this could be a helpful strategy.

However, I know, for me, that the proximity of the music to my start can often lead to that last particular song being stuck in my head for the entire race. So, it would seem prudent that one should also have some re-focus techniques at the ready to switch from "improve mood state mode" to "race mode", where now the focus is on proper navigation. The triathletes in this study had the advantage of having little to think about aside from putting one foot in front of the other.

Ultimately, in a race situation it comes down to what you think works best. But, this study shows that its worth some experimentation. Perhaps try listening to different types of music at different times before the race. Maybe 2 hours, maybe 5 minutes. Maybe high-tempo motivational music, maybe Leonard Cohen. Maybe something that makes you laugh, or listen to some Canadian comedy... *zing!*

Find some music that is both motivating, and matches your gait cycle. That should be easy enough to figure out, surely the internet likely would tell you the tempo of any song, and a few workouts where you count your steps or use a pedometer would give an idea of what your natural turnover is at different speeds. Heck, this could be interesting. When spring rolls around, I'm going to try it! If someone else does, let me know what your scientifically tested running song is.

"Deadmau5, now tested by science!"

And since I brought it up, here's some rally music. Ah... early 2000's electronic music.