We hit the gym with Sony Ericsson

On 27 September, the Sony Ericsson Run to the Beat half marathon is being held in London. We were invited along to a training session to meet Dr Costas Karageorghis, Reader in Sports Psychology at Brunel University to find out how music can help increase performance in sport.

Dr Costas is a focused man, with the sort of 1500m stare that 20 years researching the link between sport and music gives you, but we couldn’t help smiling at his lab coat. We don’t know if it was simply a way of stereotyping scientists, or because he expected us all to bleed this Saturday morning. Luckily for us, it’s the former.

The man has spent his research career investigating something he is clearly passionate about and the man is no couch potato himself as we soon found out. The lab coat came off, the floor cleared and Dr Costas put us through a warm-up routine with expert precision. Something that comes from coaching Brunel’s athletics team we guess.

Sony Ericsson issued us with W995 handsets, their flagship Walkman phone, preloaded with tracks for us to listen to during our exercises that day. But we weren’t just here for fun, we were being monitored and data was being gathered about our responses to the music, and how that impacts on our perception of the exercise.

It’s a micro-scale experiment compared with Run to the Beat. It’s a half marathon organised by IMG who also do the London Triathlon and other mass participation events. For Dr Costas, it’s a chance to see his research in action on a mass scale.

Dr Costas informed us that his research has highlighted tempos of 120-150bpm as ideal for running, bringing with it motivational benefits and lessening the perception of effort. But it’s a multifaceted connection with various psychophysical elements coming into play, something that the experiments made perfectly clear to us.
Continue reading »