Music Articles

Indoor cycling instructors are part DJ and part coach. The best cycling teachers pair rhythmic coaching cues with powerful tunes that transport riders to an inspirational place. Here are several tested and true ways to take your students on a magical, musical ride. Play Music Before the Ride Beginsnewsletter_teaser: Indoor cycling instructors are part DJ and part coach. The best cycling teachers pair rhythmic coaching cues with powerful tunes that transport riders to an inspirational place. Here are several tested and true ways to take your students on a magical, musical ride.

Music that makes you happy also benefits your cardiovascular system. That encouraging finding emerged from a small study presented in November 2008 at the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association in New Orleans.

In May 2010, the Australian Copyright Tribunal voted for a significant fee hike (from $0.98 AUS to $15 AUS per class) for fitness facilities that play music in group exercise sessions. The Phonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA), an organization that protects sound recordings and music videos, requested the increase. Later that year the appeal courts overturned the ruling, prompting the PPCA to file its own appeal, which was rejected.

Want your clients and athletes to reach new levels of power performance? Have them train while playing their favorite tunes. A study published in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research (2011; doi: 10.15191JSC.obo13e318237e7b3) suggests that athletic performance improves when a client gets to choose his own music. The study involved 20 trained college males who performed three bench-press sets to failure at 75% of 1-repetition maximum (1-RM) and three jump squats at 30% of 1-RM.

In the April issue of IDEA Fitness Journal, you asked if anyone was using music to enhance the experience of clients. I am a clinical musician intern playing harp for patients in the hospital as well as in hospice care. I include harp playing to induce the relaxation response during my yoga classes. I use the musical scale to tone the body to get ready for exercise and then use harp music at the end for relaxation, meditation and visual imagery.

Audio system problems? Feedback, Interference, Noise and Distortion are the most common types of signal sabotage. newsletter_teaser: Audio system problems? Feedback, Interference, Noise and Distortion are the most common types of signal sabotage.

On May 17, 2010, the Copyright Tribunal of Australia ruled in favor of significantly increased music licensing fees, as requested by the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA). To avoid paying hefty fees, fitness facilities and group fitness instructors could opt to play royalty-free music. However, on appeal from Fitness Australia, the Federal Court recently overturned that ruling. “We are of the opinion that the Tribunal did conduct itself in a way which was procedurally unfair to Fitness Australia,” stated the Federal Court.

Listening to music may relax patients on mechanical ventilators, potentially reducing any associated complications, according to a review published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (2010; [12], CD006902; doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD006902.pub2). Studies show that by relieving anxiety and stress, music therapy can improve coordination and motor skills, enhance the well-being of patients suffering from cognitive disorders and complement treatment for cancer and other conditions. Other benefits include the lack of side effects and the low implementation cost.

Are you or other colleagues at your facility using any particular types of music or featuring special musical events to enhance the experience of clients? For example, have you offered classes that feature live drumming or other types of live music? If yes, what has been the response, and are you doing this as a special event or as a regular class? What fees do you charge, if any?

The ways of the sound system often seem mysterious. What do all those knobs do, anyway? Why does it sound great one day and terrible the next? Most group fitness instructors are simply content to find the “on” switch. Yet we all know that an audio breakdown is frustrating (and embarrassing), not only to us, but to our participants.