We Are the Champions – How music helps us exercise.

In March this year, I participated in the most-excellent Science Media Space. One of the activities was to write a blog post about an interesting science topic. Yes, it has taken a while, but here's my take on the use of music in sport.

Couldn’t have made it through Run Geelong
 without my favourite playlist!

My birthday has passed for another year, signalling not only that I’ve made it through another year in the lab, but also the shift to cooler weather. Yes, summer is over (BOO!), and I actually wore my scarf for the first time this morning. But with autumn comes my return to a regime that 30C days sees fall by the wayside…

Roller Derby Fitness!

Yes, back to suicide runs, ridiculous looking squats, and the universally hated Spiderman Climbs. As a ref, we skate the full hour game, having to keep up with the fastest jammer, break hard with every tumble, and dodge each other nigh constantly. Sadly, our 2x3hr training sessions a week just don’t cut the mustard for that level of endurance. But before your quadriceps begin aching in sympathy, this increase in physical activity has one serious upside…

New Workout Playlist!

I’ve currently got a few new playlists that I’m trialling, spending a few minutes after each session pruning the slow tracks (The Vines “Ms Jackson” sadly cut), and finding the exact spot to place that motivating power song (Hello, Flogging Molly’s “Seven Deadly Sins”!). But questionable musical taste aside, I was excited to learn there’s an increasing body of science studying how music can affect our exercise performance.

Lets Get Physical

There are plenty of different factors that may influence the effect that music has on us during exercise. These can be loosely divided into the internal (rhythm response, and your own innate ‘musicality’), and the external (Cultural influences, and associations to particular music).  We’re going to focus more on the former here today, but as you can see in Figure 1, there is a complex interplay between all these factors that impact on how we react to music during physical exertion.

Music can affect us in many different ways, with many potential benefits (RPE= Rating of Perceived Exertion; Karageorghis & Priest 2011 Creative Commons)

Little is actually known about the mechanisms of how this occurs, because the equipment you would normally use to measure neurophysiological responses is notoriously immobile. Imagine trying to MRI someone in the middle of a footy field! That said, scientists are developing a good picture of the end result of listening to music while you work out.

Music exerts what is known as an ergogenic effect on our bodies, that is it improves physical exercise performance by delaying the onset of fatigue or increasing our capacity for work, which manifest as “higher-than-expected levels of endurance, power, productivity or strength”. It also has a psychological effect, influencing mood, emotion, thought processes and behaviour, and psychophysiological effects, such as the perception of effort and fatigue.

Big Distraction

The nervous system is complex, but sensory stimuli, like music, can actually block the feedback signals created in response to exercise. Literally a sensory overload, you’re distracting the body from responding to fatigue. This varies at different exercise levels, i.e. the harder your body is working, the stronger the physical feedback signals, so the inhibiting effect of music gets drowned out. Even so, your choice of music may actually make you feel better about being fatigued, so don’t write it off if you’re pushing your boundaries!

Totally Addicted to Bass

We all do it. You’re favourite song comes on, and you start using your fingers, feet, and the nearest surface to start tapping out the percussion. Humans are hard-wired to synchronise our movements to music. Its been suggested that we have a pattern generator, much like a pacemaker in our brain, that coordinates afferent (incoming/sensory) & efferent (outgoing/motor) nerve signals, resulting in the syncing we see when our stride starts matching the beat.

The part of our brain that processes pre-movement signals shows increased activity with a ‘preferred’ tempo, making it easier to key-in to a beat that appeals to us. Our body relaxes more into exercise when it can follow a repetitive rhythm, like that throbbing baseline, increasing efficiency by taking away the need for minute kinetic adjustment, letting you maintain that steady state longer than in the absence of music.

It’s not just that bass drum either: When scientists just played the extracted drumbeat to participants, while still better than no music, endurance decreased. This pushes the case that it is a collective impact, the beat, lyrics and harmonies, that make the difference.

Pump Up the Jam

Changing the tempo of your music can lead to a change in your work rate. There have been a couple of studies that have shown that when we switch to a higher tempo, the faster pace seems more stimulating, and we up our output. Its great for when your enthusiasm starts to plateau, especially when you’re hitting the later stages of your workout. Long live the power song!

Faster music is generally preferred at higher exercise intensities, i.e. when your heart is really pumping. However, this relationship is not linear, and actually tapers off at higher levels of exertion. So while that 180 bpm espoused as the golden rule by running music webpages everywhere may be perfect for elite athletes, your mileage may vary depending on your fitness level, how hard you’re pushing, and what your goals are.

Louder fast paced music can also be beneficial, leading to high output, though changing volumes at slow tempos does little. Just keep in mind that loud music can damage your ears, or drown out things like traffic. Your danger response reflex will be dampened, so you may not notice a hazard until its too late.

Push It Real Good

Self-paced exercise, like what we do when we go for a run, ride or skate, is where the effect of music really shines. It has been demonstrated that motivational music (generally 140+ bpm) can enhance exertion without increasing perceived exertion. This means that they are increasing their speed, power, distance, what-have-you, without actually realising they are working harder!

So how do we put this all together? Get an idea of where you are now, and where you want to be. Then, put together a play list of tracks that you love, aiming for a BPM range that matches your style, varying the tempo for your chosen workout, For example, my intervals playlist starts with a 140 warm-up, a 130 stretch song, then jumps around between 140-170, with a 180 ‘sprint’ song thrown in every now and then to pump up the motivation. Last season, I had a great ‘pyramid’ list, which started at 130, and got incrementally faster with each song, peaking with 3 minutes of 180 bpm before incrementally decreasing again. Then, like every good scientist, test, refine, repeat!

So load up your mp3 player, lace-up your boots, and get that heart rate pumping. Step aside dodgy AFL ‘peptides’: Music is the drug, a 100% legal performance-enhancing drug.

Good News, Bad News

So, what happened on Friday of Week 3 that has potentially killed me for the rest of the RDWC challenge?

After a week of taping my ankle to help with support, I’d had the tape off for about 2 days, giving it a chance to prove itself before derby on Sunday. My quadriceps were still pretty sore from the previous weekend, but I was still stubbornly believing that there was nothing to worry about, and that I’d be fine by Sunday. Then, on the way to watch the football with some friends at the pub, my ankle gave out. I landed heavily on my knee (thankfully not the dodgy one!), and all of my weight went back. Those crazy tight quads screamed, and so did I.

It took me almost 10 minutes to limp the 30m from where I fell to the pub. A skinned knee dripping blood down my leg was the least of my worries. My right leg couldn’t bear weight without feeling like I’d been stabbed in the thigh.  I was fairly convinced I had ripped the muscle from the bone. I spent 2 hours sitting on one bar-stool, my leg supported on another, with ice wrapped around my quad, before I felt like I could put any weight back on it. Thankfully, my favourite team was playing their pre-season game, so in between growling, yelping and crying, I got to see them play. After hobbling to the car, and then from car to boyfriend’s couch, I spent the rest of the night with ice on and off. The pain localized, and seemed to be focused on my vastus intermedius, the middle section of the quadriceps, the type of pain suggesting partial tear, rather than full snap. Despite being good friend’s with my physio, and knowing he was open the next morning, I decided to wait it out until my appointment Monday afternoon. I knew the drill: RICE. Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate. Saturday, could weight-bear for short distances, but rested up as much as possible. Sunday, the first day of RDWC’s Week 4, I decided to test myself.

Derby.

I couldn’t strap anything but my ankle, thanks to the amount of sweat that appears on a 38C day. I got 3 laps of the track at a teeth-clenching jog before having to pull out in pure agony. No luck with squats, even less with lunges. 50 wall push-ups and about the same of crutches later, and the uninjured Fresh Meat had finished their warm-up. Threw on the skates, made it halfway around the track before having to rip everything off. I was in tears, and not just because of the pain.

The following three hours were seriously depressing. I watched as my fellow Fresh Meat worked on their falls and slides, learnt the fine art of the slalom, and practiced their hops. I didn’t want to be sitting on the side-lines, I wanted to be out there, falling on my arse, laughing, learning. Instead, I watched, and I listened, and I tried to remember everything that was said, in the vain hope I’d be back the next week. Once the Fresh Meat had finished, I was the only one to stay behind for the level 2 and up training, like I do every week, even getting the opportunity to act as penalty timer for scrimmage. It was great, I learnt a lot, and our Fresh Meat coaches were fantastic, encouraging me to come along next week even if I was off skates, and telling me they’d run me through a one-on-one catch-up session when I was back on my wheels. That made me feel better (Thanks Ace and Fink!), but I still couldn’t shake the sinking feeling that in the space of one week, I had blown a year of physio and hard work. Home to more ice and an early night.

Today, I saw my physiotherapist.

“A Grade Strain”. After 15 minutes of explaining what happened, how it felt at the time of the injury and since, discussing my suspicions, and having a bit of a poke around (Ok, actually more technical than that, but you don’t want details of my screaming and crying), those three words were a sweet relief. A strain I can handle, as long as the muscle is intact. An intact muscle doesn’t need surgery, it just needs some gentle love and attention until it is healed.

The verdict? Minimum two weeks recovery. I have set exercises I have to do 3 or 4 times a day, and am restricted to walking, with a reassessment in one week. In the words of my physio “No running, no jumping, no hopping or skipping or lunges, and for gods sake, no skates!” Any core work involving my legs is out, so no planks, wall sits or push-ups (unless they’re one legged, against an upright surface, on my good leg). It’s boring, and it’s horrible, and I’m annoyed, but you know what? I’ll do it. I’ll take the weeks off skates until I’m approved again. I’ll research a million-and-one ways to work my core, back and upper body without engaging my quads. Because I want it. Because derby is worth fighting for. And because I’ll be damned if I’m letting my body get the better of me again.

Neysa xo

RDWC2012 - Week Two & Three Wrap Up

Ever feel like your life has just been picked up and thrown around a bit, to the extent you’ve lost a certain amount of control? That’s been me for about the last 2 weeks. I had best intentions of posting a weekly round-up for this challenge, but life had other ideas! So, how’s the challenge going?

Week Two

After the shaky start in Week 1, I was really happy with the progress made in Week 2. My body recovered well when I put my calorie intake back up and cut out some of the meat proteins. On the Sunday I had 2 hours of derby training and felt fantastic, bouncing straight back afterwards, with little soreness the next day. Every day that week, I rode my bike for at least 30 minutes, on one day for around 90 minutes. (House-hunting is fantastic for this!). I did push-ups and sit-ups every second day, giving my abdominals a chance to recover in between, since I know I have a history of over-working them. Due to some knee and ankle issues that have flared up, I didn’t do much leg work outside what my physio gave me, but at the end of the week, I was pretty happy with where I was. According to my food diary, I was still about 300 calories short a day, but I was probably operating a touch under my calculation values, so I wasn’t too stressed.

I didn’t have too many major challenges during Week 2. I didn’t want to push myself too hard after how my body had reacted in Week 1, but I was still happy with my increased activity levels and my food choices.

Week Three

Week 3 started quite well. Fresh Meat training on Sunday was great, though I started to get a niggle in my ankle while doing some stopping drills. Monday afternoon I had an appointment with my physio, who diagnosed acute tendonitis and some lower-leg muscle weakness. A quick refresher in support taping, and an adjustment to my exercise regime, and I was out the door again. More push-ups and crunches on the Tuesday, and I was feeling good! Then, Wednesday. I had a rather epic day of riding around to house inspections, only to get clipped by a car while on my bike on my way to the last house on my list. Thankfully, no major injuries were sustained, but I was rather shaken, sporting a few bruises, and had some doozey road rash. Took Thursday and Friday fairly easy, not wanting to do more damage to already bruised muscles.

On the Saturday, I was somewhat unexpectedly called to play a game of baseball, something I haven’t done in about 3 years. I played a season as an undergrad, then shifted clubs as a scorer, and eventually left the game behind, before taking up softball for a season in my final year of undergrad, and giving it away again when I started my research career. 4 hours of running around the outfield in sweltering heat made for a super-sore body that night. My quadriceps were a lot tighter than normal, but I attributed that to lack of use, and figured it would mend with some stretching. Sunday, I was still sore, but roller derby awaited! We spent a whole 2 hours working on our knee slides and falls (Ok, well maybe half an hour was spent learning sticky-skating). By the end of it, my quads were screaming at me, and I ached pretty much everywhere. Not to worry, nothing some stretching and ice wouldn’t fix. That night, at a BBQ (Meat and salad, yay! A ginger beer, oops. In my defense, still came in right on my calorie intake for the day!), one of my friend’s fell through a section of roof, and I ended up heading to hospital with him after holding a tourniquet on his arm until the medicos arrived. Thankfully, when I finally got to see him in the ER after getting checked out, he hadn’t done any serious damage. He had a bruised butt, a bit of a bump on the head, and a lovely deep laceration that laid the muscles on his arm bare, but thankfully hadn’t severed anything vital. Once he had settled in for the night, I met up with some friends at the pub, and being the good girl I am, didn’t have a drink. Didn’t do much else either, still being rather sore from all that sport. Still, nothing stretching, ice and rest wouldn’t fix, right?

Oh how wrong I was. When by Tuesday I still couldn’t move properly, I should have given my physio a call. My gut told me something was wrong, but I convinced myself that if I kept up with my normal recovery routine, I’d be fine. I shifted from ice to heat, stretched out my legs every chance I got. I cut out everything that wasn’t prescribed by my physio. I took a ridiculously long, hot bath and THEN stretched. Friday morning, I was starting to feel better, but was still tight. Needless to say, called the baseball girls and put in my apologies for the rest of the season, and eternity.

So what went wrong? Find out in Part 2!

Neysa xo

P.S. Friend is fine. After a nice 3 day hospital stay, he had surgery to reattach all his skin, and is now recovering at home. He's vowed never to climb on a roof again.

RDWC2012 - The Week One Wrap-Up

First things First!

Straight off the bat, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone that read my last post, and for all of the positive feedback both here and on Facebook. 246 visitors in 24 hours is a new record for this blog! I love that I got to use my nerdy science powers for good rather than evil, and that it may have helped people to think about the way they approach a new diet plan. So big *MWAH* to you all!

So how did I go with Week 1 of the Roller Derby Workout Challenge?

Blah.

Sunday to Wednesday I had stuck pretty close to the meal plan. I spent most of the first week (Monday-Thursday) feeling pretty flat. I was lethargic, I tired very quickly, I was cranky, I had headaches, I couldn’t concentrate on work. I did do a long session of physio, followed by stair-runs, jumping jacks and planks, but I was knackered after only two sets of each. I tried to run one afternoon, and felt very faint even before the end of the first kilometer.  Basically, I’d get home from uni, try to exercise, and face a body that literally could not handle it. Enter the nutritional analysis.

After fixing my calorie intake, dropping the sodium, and upping the vegies, my body responded really well. I played kick-to-kick and tennis with my boyfriend, spent a half-hour swimming at the beach (actually swimming out the back of the breakers, not frolicking in the surf!), went for a run on the sand. And it felt GOOD! Ok, I didn’t stick strictly to the workout plan, but I was getting my heart-rate up, which I’m happy with.

This week has already started out much better, but I’ll fill you in on that in another post.

Tracking Progress

At the moment, I’m using Fleetly to track my exercise progress, and Myfitnesspal to track my food intake. I’ve found the Roller Derby Challenge groups on both websites, which I’m sure will be really helpful! I’ll probably start tracking my exercise through myfitnesspal too, so I have all my info in one spot, but I like the points set up in fleetly, it appeals to my competitive nature! I’ll also start logging my dietary intake once a week on Foodworks, just to keep an eye on my overall nutritional picture, but for now, I’m happy with a general idea of my intake, rather than a detailed one.

Hope you’re all having a good crack at it this week, look forward to seeing everyone’s progress!

Neysa xo

The Roller Derby Workout Challenge 2012 – An Introduction

How Did I Find the Roller Derby Workout Challenge?

A few days ago, while catching up on the Derby Deeds podcast, I heard mention of the Roller Derby Workout Challenge (RDWC). Given my desire to improve my fitness for skating, I couldn’t help but check it out on Facebook, and found myself deciding to give it a crack. The challenge officially started on the 29^th January, and runs during the same period of time as my Fresh Meat training. I’ll be blogging about my experience with the program in addition to my roller derby progress.

So What IS It?

For those of you who haven’t heard of it (or can’t be stuffed looking it up), RDWC is an 8 week fitness and diet program designed for roller derby, by lovers of roller derby. Of course, you can also do it if you don’t do roller derby, looks like it’s going to be an amazing workout. The program focuses on building strength, rather than weight-loss, a very appealing proposition for someone with my aversion to fad diets. Every week, a meal plan, workout plan and a series of ‘homework’ questions get posted for members to follow, with the Facebook group providing a community to support and encourage, trade ideas, and generally be as awesome as roller derby communities tend to be.

The Food Plan

Now, I should point out that while it does include a diet-plan, I probably won’t be following it too strictly as I’m not worried about my weight, it is too meat-heavy, doesn’t seem to incorporate enough variation for my liking, and doesn’t match with what is seasonally available here. That said, I like most of the underlying principles they have used in the creation of the food-plan, such as cutting out highly refined sugars and carbs, reducing processed meat, upping your vege intake, and putting a stop to that pesky drinking habit. I’ll probably be switching around some proteins (chickpeas instead of all that chicken!), having salads instead of cooked veges, and finding some form of substitute for nuts considering my seriously allergic housemate comes home in a couple of weeks. One thing I would like to see is the nutrient breakdown (Carbs, Protein, Fats, Calories, etc.) that they used, so that I can work with it in my own way, rather than trying to figure out what appropriate substitutes for each individual meal are. I’m going to give it a week, and then decide whether or not to continue with it.

The Exercise Regime

Whilst the exercise program originally calls for a copy of the official workout DVD, the admins have also provided an alternative workout for people who do not have the DVD, a god-send for someone like me that can’t afford the extra cost at the moment. This program is obviously designed to be supplementary to derby training, with two days using it as the primary exercise, but I’m guessing it could be substituted for any high-intensity activity, like a good long run, gym session, swimming, etc. I’ll only be having 1 derby practice a week, so I’ll have to experiment to find a replacement for the other.

Progress

Day 1 was interesting. It was the first day I’d actually had enough money to go grocery shopping since coming back from my trekking around, so contrary to my usual method of “feed what the body is asking for”, I actually sat down with the meal plan, made a shopping list, and then went to the supermarket. Took forever, but in the end came home relatively happy with my choices, including a few substitutions based on availability or preference (i.e. switching lunch ‘meat’ for tuna, pears for bananas, brussel sprouts for green beans etc). I decided to pre-cook a few things for during the week, like turkey mince or pork fillet, so I could just throw some in to a container with salad and rice for uni. I also made a batch of tahini dressing based on Bonzai Aphrodite’s offerings, which, due to its immense yumminess, I can foresee going on EVERYTHING! In terms of what I actually ate, it was a bit of a shambles. I’ll save it for a later ‘Week in Review’ post, but suffice to say it wasn’t the best start. *grins*

Outside of RDWC2012

I utterly failed in my aim this week to start getting back to my strict physio routine, mostly because my usual exercises have been making my ankle hurt a lot more than is usual, and I’d prefer to see my physiotherapist before continuing too hard. Because I was only doing some exercises, that meant I slacked off a lot with the others too, so this week, it’s back on the table: Physio for Neysa!

The last week, with Australia Day, glorious warm weather, and a fridge full of ciders, I drank more than I should, and the tennis has been on so it’s been a lot of late nights (But last night’s final, WOW!), so I’m looking forward to using February as my ‘reset’ for the new year, and getting my butt back on track!

I hope you’ll all join in on my journey, be it encouragement, chastisement, or just having a general chat.

Neysa xo

This Is Roller Derby.

Darby, by Myka Jelina

Today was the day. Today, I became part of something bigger than myself. Today I started roller derby.

The Geelong Roller Derby League had their sign-up day today, so at 4.30pm myself and about 10 other women were sitting in the sweltering heat of the big blue Barwon Valley Activity Centre shed, listening to some of my derby heroes talk about what we are going to work through during our Fresh Meat course. Can I just say, Ace of Hearts, Eva War, and Boneyard Betsy are really wonderful in person, and I now respect them even more than I did for their on-skate performances.

The tenish of us are all different. I didn’t get a chance to really talk to anyone before everyone left, but we’re all different ages, have different body shapes and sizes. Some have piercings and tats, others (like me) had none. Some came in full make up, hair up etc, some didn’t. And pretty much everyone signed the form to start training. I like that we have such a diverse group, and look forward to getting to know the other women in my intake, as well as the rest of the league, in the weeks to come.

Fresh Meat starts on Sunday in 2 weeks time, and will include both off-skate fitness & strength training, as well as learning how to skate safely, fall, lean and all the other fun derby stuff. Some people looked surprised at the prospect of having to do push-ups and sit-ups, something which I was already anticipating from years in other sports, and from my research of derby. Being honest, the prospect of the fitness training excites me, as I’m really looking forward for a new opportunity to push myself.

And I am going to have to start pushing myself. Over the two months since I left on conference leave, I’ve been very very slack with my physio, and it’s starting to show. If I’m going to be any good at derby, and avoid needless injury, I have to start getting back in to it, so that’s what I’m going to do. As of right… NOW! I’m going to work hard, train hard, and get back to my peak. I’ll be aiming to run through my full physio program twice a day, as I was when I hurt my shoulder this time last year. I’ll also be aiming to spend at least 30mins on my skates every day, even if it is only around the house, as I was doing before I went overseas.

I’m very excited that I am finally able to make a start in the sport of roller derby, after a couple of years of waiting, watching, and wishing.  Bring. It. On.

Neysa xo