Music to move you: how it supports physical activity and exercise
Short-term, intense exercise programmes often produce incredibly rapid results, such as faster weight loss or improved performance. Yet for many people, these results are often short-lived. Life gets busy, motivation fades, the gym bag gathers dust, and our daily sedentary routines return.
Therefore, these short bursts of extreme effort can certainly deliver rapid results, but they are rarely sustainable. Lasting health rarely comes from extremes. It comes from habits we enjoy repeating over time. But how can we help foster these habits?
At the University of Jyväskylä’s Centre of Excellence in Music, Mind, Body and Brain and within the project MPOWER, we have examined one potential key factor that can support individuals’ physical activity and exercise: music. The focus has been on both everyday movement and structured exercise.
Personalised music systems and daily activity
One key study examined personalised interactive music systems. These are smartphone apps or devices that use sensors to adjust music tempo or genre in real time according to a person’s movement. We found that these systems made physical activity and exercise feel enjoyable and helped participants increase their overall physical activity levels.
Another one of our studies examined the effects of music during endurance cycling.
Twenty-nine recreationally active adults completed two exhaustion tests at a demanding intensity. In one test they listened to their own playlist; in the other they cycled in silence.
Participants cycled on average six minutes longer with music. At the point of exhaustion, however, heart rate, oxygen uptake, perceived effort and blood lactate levels were almost the same in both conditions. In other words, the body reached the same “I just can’t go on” point, yet the music helped participants tolerate the discomfort longer.
The pleasure principle
Humans are wired to repeat what feels good and avoid what hurts. In exercise science, this basic “core affect”, that raw feeling of pleasure or displeasure, is one of the strongest predictors of whether someone will continue to exercise regularly.
When a workout leaves you feeling energised and positive rather than drained and miserable, you’re far more likely to make it a habit.
Our findings suggest that music can help translate short-term exercise efforts into lasting habits.
Choosing music that matches personal preferences and movement rhythm may offer a simple, low-cost way to make regular physical activity feel more sustainable. More high-quality studies, particularly with diverse populations and longer follow-up periods, are still needed.
Even so, current evidence indicates that music can play a supportive role in helping people stay active over time.
Andrew Danso works as Postdoctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Jyväskylä. Danso leads the research project Music, Sports Performance and Physical Activity (MPACT) in which researchers explore the use of music during sports performance, physical activity and exercise endurance.
