ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 1999 September;39(3):220-5

Copyright © 2000 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

The effects of slow- and fast-rhythm classical music on progressive cycling to voluntary physical exhaustion

Szabo A. ¹, Small A. ¹, Leigh M. ²

¹ Department of Life Sciences, The Nottingham Trent University; ² Department of Music, University of Nottingham, UK

Background. To inves­ti­gate, ­based on the par­allel infor­ma­tion pro­cess­ing mod­el and arou­sal hypoth­e­sis, wheth­er musi­cal tem­po and its manip­u­la­tion dur­ing exer­cise ­affect the max­i­mal work­load (­watts) ­achieved dur­ing pro­gres­sive ­cycling.
Methods. Design: repeat­ed meas­ures experi­ment ­that ­involved one con­trol and ­four treat­ment con­di­tions. Settings: the experi­ment was per­formed in a con­trolled labor­a­to­ry envi­ron­ment. Participants: twen­ty-­four ­male and ­female vol­un­teers, recruit­ed ­from ­among a University pop­u­la­tion, ­were test­ed. Intervention: the ­data col­lec­tion pro­ceed­ed in ­five coun­ter­bal­anced ­test-ses­sions ­that includ­ed con­trol (C), ­slow ­music (SM), ­fast ­music (FM) ­slow to ­fast ­music (SFM) and ­fast to ­slow ­music (FSM) inter­ven­tions. In the ­last two con­di­tions, musi­cal tem­po was ­changed ­when the ­participant's max­i­mal HR ­reserve has ­reached 70%. In all ­test-ses­sions, par­tic­i­pants start­ed to ­cycle at 50 ­watts and ­then the work­load was ­increased in incre­ments of 25 ­watts eve­ry min­ute ­until ­self-­declared exhaus­tion. Maximal ergom­e­ter ­cycling was ­defined as the work­load at the ­last com­plet­ed min­ute of exer­cise. Measures: work­load, HR, and ­postexperi­men­tal rat­ings of ­test-ses­sion pref­er­enc­es ­were the depen­dent meas­ures.
Results. Significantly high­er work­load was accom­plished in the SFM con­di­tion. No ­between-ses­sion dif­fer­enc­es ­were ­seen in HR. The ­results ­also yield­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter "effi­cien­cy", in ­terms of work­load/HR ­reserve ­ratio, in the SFM ses­sion. Participants pre­ferred the FM and SFM ses­sions ­more ­than the oth­er ses­sions.
Conclusions. Switching to FM dur­ing pro­gres­sive exer­cise ­results in the accom­plish­ment of ­more ­work with­out pro­por­tion­al chang­es in HR. These ­effects may be due to dis­trac­tion ­from ­fatigue and are, appar­ent­ly, depen­dent on the atten­tion cap­tur­ing ­strength of the dis­tract­ing stim­u­lus.