Tuesday, September 7, 2010

I’ve always loved the montage sequences in movies.

What’s not to like? They’ve got up-tempo music, people running in slow motion - often along a beach and they work as both a cunning device to increase tension and as a timely reminder of the plot to the dafter members of the audience.

In no film is the montage put to better use than the Rocky franchise, and Rocky IV in particular. For those who missed it, having just watched Russian powerhouse Ivan Drago kill best pal, Apollo Creed, in the ring, Rocky is hell-bent on revenge. Typically, wife Adrian doesn’t really fancy his chances. “You can’t win,” she screams down the stairs in a bit of a mental
fashion, leaving Rocky to march out of the house in a right strop. He proceeds to jump in the Lamborghini only to be haunted by images of his life, Apollo’s death, and numerous shots of him in an unnecessarily small vest, with unnecessarily large hair - all to the tune of ‘No Easy Way Out’ by Robert Tepper.

The reason I’m telling you all this is that’s it’s my favourite workout song. In a week when I’ve been trying to drive my cardio
performance through the roof, it’s come in pretty handy. It always amazes me when I see people at the gym who aren’t exercising to music.

Many people feel it’s a placebo when it comes to performance, but as recent studies have shown, it can improve your results by 20 per cent.

Last week, as I struggled away on the treadmill, somebody happened to stick a CD in the machine. It was some sort of Arabic love song compilation and I couldn’t for the life of me work out why this guy had felt it would improve his workout.

But really, there can be no definitive playlist. Songs are particular to the individual, not prescriptive.

Music has a resounding cognitive impact, and if it’s a song that holds special resonance with you, it will soon have worked its way into your subconscious and lifted your performance, even without you even realising it. It’s not just music you like that can help. It’s unlikely that the 65-year-old bloke on the exercise bike will be too happy that you’ve got 50 Cent blaring, but he’ll have picked up on the beat, and Curtis Jackson’s rantings will have improved his time, whether he’d admit it or not.

Of course for it to help there are some rules of thumb. The music should be of a high tempo - particularly with cardio - so as to help you match your steps with the beat.

But other than that anything goes, and if it’s The Cheeky Girls that push you towards the burn, then so be it - you big weirdo. Just remember to never, ever put them on the gym CD player. Chances are you’d be lynched.

Andrew Nagy is editor of Men’s Fitness, the ultimate health, fitness and lifestyle magazine dedicated to men in the UAE.
andrew.nagy@itp.com