("Back For Love" by DJ Mayson)
- I was always a big fan of listening to music
when I was out on my bike training.
Not only because I thought it gave me extra motivation
and help the time go faster
but I'm also convinced it actually made me faster.
But did it really?
Did a good song actually make me ride my bike quicker?
And would a bad song actually make me ride slower?
I think it's time that we did some science.
Stefan, pass me the GCN Do Science glasses.
What d'you mean, you haven't got them?
Oh, these'll have to do, then.
("Back For Love" by DJ Mayson)
- There has actually been genuine
scientific studies conducted on this topic.
Notably by Waterhouse et al. at the Liverpool
John Moores University, where they tested
the effects of increasing or decreasing music
by 10% on submaximal cycling performance.
They found that riders listening to the faster music
produced more power at a higher cadence
and rode further in a given time,
and of course, vice versa for the slow riders.
But we're not interested in submaximal performance.
Nope, we want to know what effects music
has on my maximal cycling performance.
So we've come out here to the GCN test track.
Although, that's a lie, actually.
We've just come to one of my favorite
roads in the Cotswolds.
So what is the test?
Well, I'm going to be doing three
seven minute maximum efforts.
Effort number one will be the control
and that will be done to no music,
which sounds a little bit like
yeah, you get the idea.
Effort number two will be done to the slow music,
and that sounds like this
(downtempo chill dance music)
and then effort number three will be done
to the faster music and that sounds a little bit like this
(hard techno music)
and yes, I am now regretting
suggesting seven minute efforts.
It started out at two minutes and for some reason,
we thought it'd be a good idea to increase it to seven
and it seemed like a great idea when I was in the office,
but now I've just had a big belly of lunch.
I'm nervous.
Just quickly, it's worth mentioning safety.
Listening to music while riding your bike
can be a pretty contentious issue.
I think some people worry that it could be a bit dangerous,
reducing your ability to hear the traffic around you.
Whilst there isn't any law in the UK
banning wearing headphones,
I personally like to just wear one
in my left ear, the non-traffic side,
although, to be honest,
I've definitely used both in the past as well.
But for today's test, I'm going to be using both headphones.
I went to bed really excited last night
because I'd sent out a group email
to my fellow presenters.
However, when I woke up for breakfast,
I was really disappointed they'd all replied
saying they were busy and I'm not sure what it was
about today's ride that put them off.
Maybe it was the three seven minute max efforts.
Anyway, I'm now on the start line
and I'm about to relinquish my Wahoo,
because it's a blind test,
no heart rate, no power, no cadence, no speed, nothing.
So, Stefan, you can record from behind me.
I'm ready to go.
- [Crew Member] Okay right, you ready Chris?
- [Chris] I'm ready.
- Three, two, one, go.
(truck engine)
(wind blowing)
(breathing)
(truck engine)
- [Crew Member] Three, two, one, it's finished.
- Fifty sign.
You've got no idea of how far you've ridden
or how hard you're going.
All that I know is that everything hurt.
Yeah, so, you just feel so alone,
like I don't know the last time
I didn't have a timer in front of me
when I was trying to do something.
Weird.
(downtempo chill dance music)
It's so distracting, actually,
listening to that music like that because
it was so, I don't know, subdued
and it makes you breathe slowly.
Nonetheless, I actually thought, like, I was going faster
which is a bit weird as well because
nothing hurt in the same way.
Like, I found it really hard to push, quite genuinely.
Normally by the second effort,
you've probably feel a bit more weight
and you'd probably be able
to hurt yourself sooner in the effort.
Weird.
Right then, the final seven minute effort coming up.
I've now got the fast music on
and I do feel a little bit more upbeat,
but I'm still apprehensive of the effort
because the other two have just been horrible, to be honest.
Count me down!
- [Crew Member] Three, two, one, go!
(hard techno music)
♪ Rock this, here we go! ♪
- [Crew Member] Three, two, one.
- I definitely tried harder there.
Ah, that'll be the coffee cake for lunch.
That music's much more in line with something
I would have listened to when I was warming up
back when I was still racing
and it's exactly the sort of thing
that made me feel unbeatable on good days.
Ah, don't get me wrong.
They didn't happen very often,
but when they did,
like I mean genuinely,
I felt phenomenal.
I think it all comes from,
I'm convinced to this day
having the right playlist,
go through all your warmup properly.
And it felt like that.
Right, I'm going to nurse myself back
to the cafe because, of course,
we've managed to base ourselves from a cafe
and we're going to go over the results when we get back there.
So, we've made it back to the pub
after three hard efforts.
Effort number one, then, the results are 382 watts.
This is the effort with no music, if you remember.
172 heart rate, 84 cadence and 44 kilometers an hour.
For a total distance of 5.14 kilometers.
Effort number two was with the slow music
and that's the one where
I found it really hard to get going, actually.
You'll notice this in my heart rate,
which is six beats per minute lower, a 166 average.
Watts were also down, 359.
Cadence was very close, though.
That was actually 85 RPM for that one
and the speed 43.5 kilometers,
which gives me a total of 40 meters less
and 5.1 kilometers.
Then the final effort, the music, that was the fast music,
the kind of music that I might have listened to on a warm-up
back when I was racing.
385 watts, so three higher than the control run.
176 beats per minute,
which is again higher than the others,
four beats per minute higher.
86 RPM and then 45.6 kilometers per hour,
which is quite a lot faster, actually,
1.6 kilometers an hour faster,
for a total distance of 5.34 kilometers.
The heart rate and the power,
they're all fairly similar
so maybe I rode it in a more aggressive manner,
maybe I forced the power on over the top of the climbs
and then eased up on the descent.
The sort of more focused time trial type effort
that you might make if you were doing a bike race
and you were doing it properly
in a really focused and dedicated fashion.
So am I surprised by the results?
Well, yes and no.
I mean, actually, I found the slow music the most surprising
because I found it really hard to focus,
I found myself drifting off and listening to music,
rather than focusing on the effort
I was trying to put out on the bike
and therefore it slowed me down just that little bit.
When it came to the faster music, though,
I'm not surprised at all.
I've listened to faster music in playlists
when I was warming up for training or racing for years
and I know for a fact that it works well to motivate me
and really get me focused on the effort that's to come.
One thing we do know about this test, though,
is that actually testing one individual over three efforts
is not enough data to gain a good hard conclusion.
For that, we need to test multiple individuals
over multiple efforts and ideally,
we do that over multiple days as well.
But we have certainly scratched the surface
with our findings and discovered that actually
music can really help you to get more
out of yourself on your bike.
So what does this mean for you at home?
Well, it means that you should consider
using music as a motivator.
If you're not confident and comfortable wearing headphones,
or it's perhaps illegal where you live, out on the road,
you can still use them on the indoor trainer
or you can use them as a pre-ride motivator.
You can be really clever about this
by creating a playlist
that actually includes fast music and slow music.
Fast music for your hard intervals
and then for your recovery periods,
you can use the slower paced sedate music.
All of this leads me onto one final question.
Do you use music at home to help motivate your training?
If so, how do you use it?
Let us know in the comments box down below.
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