Believe it or not, you actually can do a burpee without rocking a beat!

 In General, Gym, StoneAgeFuel

Every group class has at least one of them…

One persnickety Music Nazi.

You know the prototype: The Music Nazi is the person who freaks out mid-conditioning workout if the wrong song comes on if the volume drops below a certain pitch, or heaven forbid if the music temporarily stops altogether.

When the song isn’t reaching the this person’s threshold of acceptability, you’ll see an unmistakably distressed look grow across his/her face.

Then, for some reason unexplainable by science, his body seems to become suddenly paralyzed, utterly incapable of performing even one more deadlift or burpee until the correct song at the perfect volume is peacefully restored.

And he will do anything to make this happen.

Panting from the workout, his head on a swivel, he aggressively searches for the coach.

He throws his hands in the air and breaks into what can only be called a frustrated plea for help.

Music! Music!he yells.

This is terrible!

Fix the music!

Please!

I get it. Working out in dead silence isn’t exactly motivating.

But, believe it or not, it is very possible to perform deadlifts or burpees—or even pull-ups or box jumps or rowing or wall balls—to annoying pop songs, to love songs, to an acoustic guitar serenading someone in the corner, and even in total and utter silence.

OK, enough facetiousness.

I like to post about revealing new health, fitness or nutrition research (in case you haven’t noticed), and so I decided to search for evidence of there being a correlation between music and the ability to workout.

No dice.

That being said, there has been researched done on the psychological effect of working out to a beat, and there certainly is evidence that people will work out longer when there’s music playing…

Mostly because the music acts as a welcome distraction from the task at hand. Read more here about this pretty common sense research about being moved and motivated by music.

So if you’re in the group of people—the music Nazis—who feel as though psychologically the only way you can get through the workout is when your own personal playlist is blasting through the gym…

Then consider what this might say about your psychology, or mental strength, perhaps.

We often talk about preparing you both physically and mentally, and emotionally for that matter, for all the challenges life throws your way.

If you’re so sensitive and finicky about creating your ideal environment for each workout in the gym, then how are you ever going to handle unexpected challenges in life?

Just saying…

To toughen you all up, and in light of the above, I am proclaiming the month of July SILENT WORKOUT MONTH!!

Oh, don’t get your panties in a knot: I’m kidding!

We will continue to play music. But seriously, you should try to learn how to do burpees in less than ideal playlist conditions.

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