Summer is here and it's perfect for you to sweat those extra pounds out. There are many exercise options, none complete without music.
Setting up your workout routine is itself a task, and often it can become a bit of a drudge if all you can hear while working out is yourself panting for breath. There is nothing better than music to get your pulse racing.
The earliest accounts of the use of music during exercise dates back to ancient Greek armies, which used to drum up a rhythm while training and in battle. Today, your workout is not complete without an iPod.
Studies have proven that the right playlist can improve the results of a workout, because it is a "motivator" to up the exertion rate and "distract" from fatigue. Costas Karageorghis, a researcher at England's Brunel University, went a step further a few years ago and said that "some songs are more effective".
After studying exercise soundtracks for more than 20 years, he found that the ideal tempo is between 120 and 140 beats per minute (bpm). That range equates with most electronic dance music and, more importantly, corresponds to the average person's heart rate during a normal workout.
If you turn up your nose at electronica, hard rock and heavy metal also falls within this range. In fact, weightlifters and bodybuilders were found to prefer rock music, as it gets the adrenaline flowing.
Fitness magazines devote hundreds of columns to advice on which artists to choose. One of them dug up the fact that Ethiopian distance runner Haile Gebrselassie requested that the techno song
