There are some people who love exercise, they happily skip off to the gym without a care, while the rest of us sleep through our alarm and say we’ll go for a jog “tomorrow”.
According to new research, humans, by nature, are physiologically lazy. In treadmill tests, scientists have revealed that we aim to use as little energy as possible when it comes to movements.
So when we workout we tend to go at a pace that allows us to exercise with minimum amount of energy.
How do we push ourselves into gear and get inspired to exercise? Lucky for us a series of recent studies suggest that this "physiological laziness" can be controlled and tweaked. And all you need is your iPod.
Researchers at the Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, found that our brain learns and remembers what pace allows us to use the least energy at any speed – regardless of whether we are walking or running, and when we reach that speed, we immediately default to our body’s most efficient pace.
But the study also discovered that the one thing that seems to override the body’s strong pull toward its preferred way of moving, is a strongly rhythmic beat.
The researchers fitted runners or walkers with headphones and tuned to a metronome. They found that they could increase or decrease volunteers’ step frequency with the use of the music, even if that frequency was faster or slower than a person’s preferred step pattern.
The runner or walker would maintain that elevated pace as long as the beat continued – tricking your body to work harder! All the more reason to take your iPod with you next time you hit the gym.
So the best way to up your pace, and in turn, your workout ante is to load your iPod with up-tempo music.
From this research the scientists have created an app called Cruise Control. It allows people to put in their preferred running or walking speed and the app will skim your music library to create a playlist with the necessary beat needed to get you moving at a fast pace!
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