It’s January so we know you’re all busy hiking around the countryside and putting the hours in the gym to work off all that holiday weight you put on over Christmas (we’re in the same boat!). If you really want to up the ante, then you might want to stick some classical music on your iPod as you go, as a neuroscientist has found it could yield better results than the pop stuff they blare out across the gym speakers.
Jack Lewis found that the relaxing properties of classical music can help reduce stress while you work out, recommending that people listen to the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4, according to the Daily Mail.
“Classical music is extremely interesting. It has obviously been around for a lot longer than all the other genres, consequently hundreds of brilliant composers have experimented with all sorts of different moods they can create in the mind of the listener.
“Within that large corpus it is possible to have high tempo tunes that have the same tempo as dance music, yet complex harmonies and a much more sophisticated structure,” he said.
How interesting! We’ll certainly be trying that out when we next hit up the cross trainer.
What do you listen to when you’re at the gym?
Related articles
- Classical music quiz: Which classical composer “flies” on Air France? Can you tell. Here’s another short chapter in “Can Advertising Help Save Classical Music.” (welltempered.wordpress.com)
- Sunday Dialogue: Is Classical Music Dying? (nytimes.com)
- Classical Music with Young People: An Interview by Lizbeth R. (classroomchitchat.wordpress.com)
Official Two Moors Festival Blog 
Very interesting information! Who would have thought?!
I know!