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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
"I love driving, and the sounds coming in the window, and listening to the traffic. Playing music just takes away from the Here and Now of it all."
AGREE!!! Same thing on the beach; why would you want to play music when there's the sounds of waves, kids, breezes and birds?
music for working out is either of Babatunde Olatunji's Drums of Passion CD's: The Invocation or The Beat. Beautiful, steady rhythms, long tracks, virtuoso playing. Drums are the closest natural sound to the human heartbeat, and I find these albums warm and inviting as well as physically invigorating.
Also, I really like C&C Music Factory's Gonna Make You Sweat. It's an older one, but it's perfect for physical exertion. Plus, it's funny too!
The reason they play metronomic electronica is because (a) it's metronomic to maintain a constant beat and cardio pace and (b) because it typically falls in the 120 - 140 bpm range. Much of rock is faster than that. And lots of other music is too slow. I for one welcome our techno overlords.
I listen to audiobooks, same as in my car. I read too slowly on the treadmill--I listen faster. I have to pause it while actually lifting, to concentrate better. But, that's a lot of time between sets or anything with cardio. I've found I get a REALLY lot more "reading" done since discovering audiobooks, though it doesn't work as well for the hard to read stuff--because I'd have to read too many portions again.
My gym tends to play crappy music from the radio, but that's my opinion of the radio, in general. Tends to be rock, I think. I think it tends to be the most popular radio station. They change it on request, which basically means the regular hardcore members usually control what gets played.
Thank you for this great article. It shows me one more reason why I work out at home.
In the mid-1980's, I was partial to heavy metal music for working out. Trouble was, I was working out at the UC Berkeley's new state-of-the-art facility which played shitty top-40 music.
To make matters worse, the assholes who managed the gym wouldn't allow people to wear Walkmans so they didn't have to listen to that shit.
Several years later, I trained at a gym at a college here in Florida. I had to throw down with a steroid jockey who insisted on changing the music to top-40 over the objections of everyone else in the place.
Turned out, he wasn't even a student, so the cops arrested him after I punched his lights out.
I got sick of the music situation (and other gym politics) and decided to buy what I needed for my home.
Today, I workout with no music. I got into the habit from one of my martial art instructors who stressed the importance of putting your focus on whatever you're doing right at that moment, whether working out or writing a letter to Salon.com.
I find I have the best workouts and I'm stronger and healthier than everyone else I know who works out.
You can keep your yuppie health clubs. Give me my own carport gym/dojo.
I agree that music in Spin class is absolutely paramount to whether I enjoy the class or not. I go to the same two instructors very early in the morning because they generally play the kind of music that pumps me up-- a great mixture of 80s rock and all-over-the-map from more 80s rock to New Age. I really don't care what kind of music is playing in the rest of the gym while I'm lifting because I'm either concentrating too hard on what I'm doing or I'm chatting with other members.
I always start any run with White Zombie's Thunder Kiss '65. After that I let the Ipod shuffle randomly through a run playlist.
The next 10 selections this time:
Ikara Colt - Sink Venice
Sons of Hercules - Gimmie Some
The Riverboat Gamblers - Ice Water
Mastodon - Hand of Stone
McLusky - Falco vs. The Young Canoeist
The Riverboat Gamblers - Hey! Hey! Hey!
Fugazi - Public Witness Program
Cows - Heave Ho
Clutch - Milk of Human Kindness
Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
Gyms play crappy music in the weight room because...well let's face it, these people just don't know what good music is. Their minds are on how many calories they intake that day, or whatever. But for those of us who crave good music, I can say with certainty that the genre of choice is hard rock/classic rock music. This is the ONLY music played in school gyms (not for-profit clubs) or any other place where the guys who work out also control the music. Specifically, one band stands out above all: Led Zeppelin. I've been thinking about why this is the case that Zeppelin would be so widely played in weight rooms. Then I read Chuck Klosterman's writings. Case closed. Play Zeppelin! (and the Rolling Stones, the Who, Jeff Beck, Allman Bros, etc)
In Portland (Oregon), the gym I belong to will only play the worst hits of the '70s and '80s. There was so much good music made in those years, too bad they never play any of it.
No one will ever agree. But that's why ipods were invented. My constantly changing workout playlist currently contains:
Set to shuffle, and I'll never have to hear "eye of the tiger" again.
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