Why Running Music? 

Look at runners on the street and you’ll see a lot of them with earbuds or headphones. In gyms, on treadmills, blasting in studios, music is often an integral part of the fitness experience. People dance to music in clubs and at concerts for the sheer joy of it. Movement and music go together. It is primal. It is pleasure.

In Daniel Levitan’s book The World in Six Songs he argues that music, “is not simply a distraction or a pastime, but a core element of our identity as a species, an activity that paved the way for more complex behaviors such as language.” You only need to think about your favorite music and how it can take you back through all the stages of your life to feel how strong the connection is. Music’s unique role in our lives, our brain chemistry, and it’s potential to be a functional training aid are all reasons that its benefits far outweigh its risks while running.

Music, a Gateway to the Runner’s High

Music can have very tangible benefits. The “zone” or the “runner’s high” is a sought after, almost mythical state among runners. It is a feeling of euphoria, control, and of achieving one’s goals. In a world and a sport that can often be frustrating, to perform with lightness, ease, strength, speed, endurance, or elegance is enough to experience a real sense of achievement and transcendence. (Note: When I mention transcendence, I am usually talking about the ability to pull yourself out of a certain limiting mindset/mental dysphoria and the ability to have a more satisfying perspective. In running, it can also mean transcending to a higher level of physical performance. Basically, you are advancing beyond your previous mental or physical limitations. Sometimes you may even feel it in a spiritual or purposeful sense. It may “feel” mystical, but I mean in it in a way grounded in reality, in having self awareness, acceptance, and love for being present where you are and can go.) Music is not necessary to achieve this but it can act as a catalyst to it.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has written extensively on reaching this “flow” state or zone. He writes:

Music, which is organized auditory information, helps organize the mind that attends to it, and therefore reduces psychic entropy, or the disorder we experience when random information interferes with goals. Listening to music wards off boredom and anxiety, and when seriously attended to, it can induce flow experiences. (Flow, p. 109)

Basically, music can help remove all the junk that clouds the mind and keeps you from performing your best because it organizes your thinking, focusing your attention where it should be.

In an earlier passage he writes, “One of the most ancient and perhaps the most popular functions of music is to focus the listeners attention on patterns appropriate to the desired mood.” Really good running music is not about trying to forget the exhaustion of running but actually putting your mind where it needs to be in order to tap into your strength and reach the goal of your run. It can be a guide to where your breathing and steps should be for optimal performance.

Rhythm and Tempo for Running Music

In running, the most crucial elements in music are the rhythm and its tempo. It has to be something that feels right to your feet in a running cadence. As Oliver Sacks wrote in his book Musicophilia, “Rhythm in this sense, the integration of sound and movement, can play a great role in coordinating and invigorating basic locomotor movement.” He goes on to quote a competitive cyclist with a favorite song:

“ … it stimulated my performance, settled my cadence at just the right tempo, and synchronized my physical efforts with my breathing. Time collapsed. I was truly in the zone, and for the first time in my life I was sorry to see the finish line. My time was a personal best.” (p. 263)

If the music is at a tempo that is not right these effects are more difficult to come by. There are a lot of advantages to cultivating a high tempo leg turnover and 180 steps per minute is often cited as the optimal number. The page - 180 bpm Cadence - explains this rationale for this in more depth.

Arguments Against Running to Music

When music is at a tempo that is too slow or the music does not enhance the experience in some other way it can actually create some dissonance in your running performance. However, for the people who are most against it, the biggest danger of listening to music while running is volume. Listening to music that is too loud in particular through noise cancelling headphones that drown out all other sounds closes the runner out of his/her immediate environment. The ability to hear your own breathing and the loudness of your steps is very important. Not to mention a car, bike or other runner coming from behind.

Personally, when I first started running I hated running with music. I could never keep earbuds in my ears, the wires were cumbersome and if a song came on that did not sync up perfectly to my run (or worse a song I absolutely hated came on over the gym sound system) it immediately took me out of the moment. However, once I got more serious about the concept of running music I found that the benefits outweighed the risks. Also, I have always been able to maintain a volume where I could still hear oncoming traffic and street noise under the music and I am always able to check in with my body by keeping one ear uncovered when needed. Now, bone conduction headphones like the Shokz OpenRun or Bose tempo are great for making music a soundtrack to your environment and not something that blocks it out completely.

I have met many people who say they can not run without music and I would discourage that as well because there are many merits of running without music. Particularly in races when there is so much going on around you. It is very possible to be able to enjoy running both with and without music.

Types of Running Music

Any music at the correct tempo that inspires you can be used as music to run to. Don’t have time to figure out song tempos or find which songs from your favorite artists work? Maybe I can help! Email me with your questions or to chat running music and I can put together a custom playlist to match your running goals and musical tastes.

Lady Southpaw Original Running Music is written with running in mind. All tracks are already in the neighborhood of 180 bpm and created especially for runners.

Read more running music research here