Music, Percieved Exertion

Recently listened to Data Driven Strength’s podcast Episode 21 “How hard are we training? Additional considerations for RIR accuracy”

Covering this article:

https://www.data-drivenstrength.com/articles/considerations-for-rir-accuracy

Which had a lot of interesting tibits on the effect of music (and other factors such as spotters and environment) on reducing percieved exertion. They go over how much of the literature is done on strength-endurance performance and what we can take away, and their practical application to standardize training environment seem sound.

I remember the article “Top 10 Songs to Squat to,” from coach Jordan and it got me thinking. Barring logistical detractions of music (constantly flipping through music songs to find the perfect one, music app-ads, etc.) if music does have this ability, which it seems it does for many people, to allow a trainee to dissociate from feelings of fatigue, is it worthile training in this environment all the time?

I personally have trained the past year and a half without music (for no particular reason) but due to unexpected circumstances had engaging music playing in recent sessions and, undoubtedly, a lot of my percieved effort/RPE’s were lower. A few considerations is that this “bump” in psychological arousal may fizzle out as time goes on, but it got me thinking, so long as I standardize my training environment with music, and it seems to at least acutely increase lifting performance (albiet through making me seem “less tired” as opposed to making me physioogicaly able to lift more reps) is there a reason not to train with this bump with arousal/any downsides?

Should we mostly elect for moderately arousing music and only save music that really gets us going for top sets? Or can we “adapt” to this extra stimuli and use it all the time?

I also remember a very old Reactive Training Systems youtube snippet of Mike T cautioning against music and psychogical arousal, but I believe that was in the context of competitive powerlifting.

Thanks!

I don’t think it matters really for top sets on important lifts, as that makes up a relatively small portion of training. Most of your training should be punching the clock, putting in work, etc. It’s okay to enjoy your training time and if music helps in that regard, go for it.

Thank you Jordan!