Can Music Help You Enjoy HIIT & Improve Performance?
Interval training has become increasingly popular with those of us who are short on time, but still want to get in a solid workout. It’s a tough way to train, pushing yourself to the limits for a short amount of time, which not everyone enjoys as much as a leisurely jog around the local park. If you’re looking to take your interval training to the next level, or just start enjoying it, then this study from UBC’s Okanagan campus, School of Health and Exercise Sciences has all the answers.1
The study
To test out the effects of training with and without music, the researchers took 24 unfit adults in their twenties who hadn’t tried sprint interval training before. They put them under three different controls — a workout with motivational music, another with a podcast, and one with no audio.
The adults completed 3x20-second sprints with 2-minute rest periods in each audio environment. They reported the most enjoyment from the sprints accompanied with music, however, that’s not where the differences end.
The verdict
While this feels like great news for your interval training in the gym, there’s a few things that need to be researched further here too. For starters, the study was only carried out on unfit participants who had never tried interval training before, so it would be interesting to see if similar results were found in a group who regularly exercised and did interval training.
Spice up your next workout with one of our Spotify playlists, we've got one for every occasion, but for HIIT, we recommend Cardio.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4H0jwI5Sq8tuTNqrcDymCs
Take home message
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Evangeline has taken part in competitive sports since a young age. As a qualified RYA Dinghy Instructor, she understands the importance of proper nutrition for fuelling extreme and endurance sports, especially due to her experience in Team GBR Squads and captaining and coaching her University first team.
In her spare time, Evangeline loves running – especially marathons. On the weekends, you’ll find her taking on water sports or hiking up a hill. Her favourite evenings are spent taking on a HIIT session or squats in the gym before digging into some spicy food and a ton of vegetables – yum!
Find out more about Evie's experience here.
