What is the best music for exercise?

It’s a pretty common sight to see runners these days packing a pair of ear buds as they push themselves up a hill or through that last mile. Go to the gym and you’ll see half or more of the people there listening to music while they work up a sweat. It’s no secret that we like to listen to music while we work out; it’s also true that while some music may be great, it’s not good for that morning run or Zumba session.

Do you ever wonder what, exactly, it is that makes a song more or less motivational when it comes to exercise? Some songs just make you want to jump up and move; others, not so much. The truth is, there’s actually some scientific basis when it comes to “good” exercise music.

Costas Karageorghis is an associate professor of sport psychology at Brunel University in England. He’s studied the effects of music during exercise for two decades, creating a rating system, Brunel Music Rating Inventory, for determining how motivational a song is during exercise.

Karageorghis found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that tempo is one of the main factors involved when deciding whether a song is physically motivating or not. Ideally, a song should be between 120 and 140 beats per minute (BPM). This corresponds not only to most dance music we hear, but also to the average heart rate of a person during a workout.

High intensity workouts such as running might work better with a higher BPM (147-160), while walking would be much lower—around 115 BMP. Speed walking, however is just below running, at 137-139 BPM.

If you can, it’s also good to eliminate gaps between songs, much like a DJ would mix one song into another. This allows for continuous exercise without a break between. People tend to work at the tempo of the music, so if there’s a pause or discrepancy there, it doesn’t work as well.

Past the BPM, it’s really a matter of musical preference. Some music is more associated with “power,” such as heavy metal—so it’s more popular with power sports like bodybuilding. Others might prefer pop music, rap, or indie. According to Karageorghis, the perfect workout song “evokes a state of optimism and excitement in the listener.”