I don't care. Your taste is shit anyway. I just wish those exercise classes would turn the volume down a little. OR I bring a bullhorn.

I compose music for fun, and exercising always seems to bring out new melodic ideas in my head. Every time I go skiing, or bicycling, or swimming, or whatever, I come home with a new tune or two. But I can't do that when I go to the gym - the stupid techno stuff interferes with the music in my head. I tried earplugs, to no avail - I can still hear it.

for crappy music, since there's so much good stuff to choose from. I teach spinning classes 3x/week and make a new mix for each class. Sometimes I hit, sometimes I miss. Recently I played a Latin/Alternative-Punk mix that (shockingly) got raves. After class, five people asked if I would make them a copy. It sounded like this:

The Sons of Cain, Ted Leo + Pharmacists 3:59

Diablo Rojo, Rodrigo y Gabriela 4:56

Won’t be Home No More, Old 97s 4:48

Celos, Marc Anthony 4:45

Brianstorm, Arctic Monkeys 2:50

Cada Beijo, Bebel Gilberto 5:51

Private Idaho, B-52s 3:38

Santa Maria, Gotan Project 5:57

Janie Jones, The Clash 2:06

Perfect Weapon, Communique 3:16

Do You Wanna Dance, Ramones 1:54

While I'm not a big fan of most contemporary "dance-rock" (I cannot fathom why everyone raves about LCD Soundsystem), I do think !!!'s Myth Takes is one of the best CDs of the year, and perfect for exercising and other booty-shaking.

My fiance is the workout champ in the relationship, while I'm pretty much the music nut, and she enjoys sifting through our substantial digital music collection to load up her iPod nano when it is gym time. Some recent favs (besides the aforementioned !!! CD):

Caribou's Milk of Human Kindness

R. Kelly's "Bump n Grind"

Ginuwine's "My Pony"

AC Newman / the New Pornographers

ditto on the people who mentioned Can, I'm guessing fellow krautrockers Neu would be good for running to as well.

I always run to Ted Leo's Shake the Sheets album. Despite its ominous name, the song "Heart Problems" in particular keeps me going when I reach my fastest pace. It makes for an exhilarating work out every time.

I have hours of music in my Ipod gym mix. Here's a sample list for a 30 minute cardio routine that both starts and ends a little slower (for your warmup and cooldown).

Gloria--Patty Smith

Miracle Drug--A.C. Newman

Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby--Johnny Cash

The Impostor--Evis Costello

Ban Marriage--The Hidden Cameras

Love Child--The Supremes

Pull Shapes--The Pipettes

I'm a Wheel--Wilco

Me and Mia--Ted Leo and the Pharmacists

Blue Letter--Fleetwood Mac

Cat's Blues--Palace

Till the End of the Day--The Kinks

Houses in Motion--Talking Heads

"Gloria"'s particularly good to start things off--you begin slowly, with intensity, and then end by rocking out for a couple of solid minutes. It should get you going.

BT's Movement in Still Life and Madonna's Ray of Light are what I walk to. The arrangement of the songs helps me walk at different paces to work out even harder.

For a warm-up 4 milles/hour on the treadmill:

I wont back down (Tom Petty)

Hash Pipe (Weezer)

I love my computer (Bad Religion)

Seven Nation Army (White Stripes)

I turn my camera on (Spoon)

Smells like teen spirit (Nirvana)

American Idiot (Green Day)

Le vent nous portera (Noir Desir)

Train in vain/Stand by me (The Clash)

Chaiyya Chaiyya Bollywood Joint (from soundtrack of a Spike Lee movie)

José F.

The teeny boppers organized and modern pop won. I wear an mp3 player with wireless headphones.

I play old R&B, 70s Funk (P-Funk, War, EWF, Bootsey, Dazz Band,etc), Jazz-Funk (The Urban Knights, Herbie Hancock), Jazz (Ramsey Lewis, the Crusaders, George Duke, Stanley Clark), Latin (Santana, Santamaria, etc) some Broadway, some R&B (Anita Baker is a good cooldown). I mix one player for running and one for lifting. For running, I have tempos for warmup, tempo runs, speedplay, etc and cool down on a few playlists. On the lifting one, I have moderate tempos. Lift heavy on P-Funk! Rick James, Curis Blow, etc all motivate me. Marvin Gaye is good for pilates. Stevie Wonder is good for anything (yeah, I worn out my copy of Innervisions.

My husband has metal and funk (he just spent boucou bucks on collected Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, the Who, Led Zepplin-people ask for copies of his playlists). We have friends with everything from rock to country (that Earl song seems to fire some people up).

I think the tempos are more important than the genre. I like all genres, as long as it is good. So much music seems created assembly line by corporate bean counters.

You might find the folks at your gym helpful, but a lot of advice given out by gym folks is just plain dumb. Count your good fortune that motivation trumps precision.

The well-intentioned bimbos and himbos most likely to be hired by gyms will rarely evince good taste in music.

We live in the personal player age....mp3's, ipod's, et cetera. So why on earth do I need to have blaring over the p.a. system at the gym the whole time? Fear of silence and fear of offending the two or three people there without mp3 players is what drives it.

In fact, that one thing, that one seemingly little thing has made me so nuts that I have considered starting my own gym, with a strict policy against playing music over the p.a.

I don't want to go to the gym at all because of it. I complained once and the manager said "It is more for the employees than the guests" and I said "Why can't they just have it play at the front desk then?" She looked at me like I was crazy.

I prefer mindless techno over the R&B crap they play in a lot of gyms. It's not even upbeat half the time, which makes it actually a problem in working out. If I forget my iPod when I got to the gym I have a strong urge to just turn around and go home because I don't think I can make it through a whole workout without being able to drown out what they play.

My other point though is: are these lists useful to anyone?

I imagine gym music is just as personal as any other kind of music, and once again, the lack of any kind of unifying thread for music listeners on Salon makes me wonder at the point of this column. I just don't know how you can write a 'generic' popular music column and appeal to a very broad audience anymore.

Let me give an example: I like Amon Amarth's 'Cry of the Black Birds' when I'm working out, but I'm guessing that has little or no relevance to anyone else here (go ahead, it's on iTunes, try it out). It's much better for me to discuss music on message boards with those with at least somewhat like-minded musical taste, since an average cross section of listeners will be coming from such a dramatically different direction from where I come from, we'd lack any common ground.