The Beat of the Music

Cheers to another Monday gone by, leading us that much closer to Fall! I’ve been adding shorter runs into my workouts to give myself some recovery but adding in more days of runs into my schedule. Music is typically the only thing that motivates me to continue running, else I would probably convince myself to stop not long after I started. Research has shown that the beat of the music you listen to can both influence or negatively impact your running. 

A regular jogging pace is around 120 beats per minute (BPM), while a push pace is up towards 140-150 BPM, and an all out is 160-180 BPM. These are all averages, though its easy to determine your own. Run on a treadmill at your regular pace for 1 minute, while counting every time your right foot strikes the ground. Times that number by 2, and that’s your average pace per minute.

I opted for following the averages and created 2 new running playlists – one for my everyday runs and one for my sprint workouts. Using the website songbpm.com, I went through all of my songs to figure out where on the BPM spectrum they laid. For my everyday running playlist, I added any song that was between 120-150ish BPM. For the all out playlist, any song between 160-180 BPM was added. I was honestly surprised at some the songs I had to completely eliminate (though I added them to my “strength day” playlist instead) and some of the songs that had higher beats than I really thought. I included some of my sample playlists below.

How do you keep yourself motivated on your runs? Or really any workout?