The effect of background music on the rating of perceived exertion, heart rate and duration of exercise during treadmill work

The purpose of this study was to determine if background music had an effect on subjects' rating of perceived exertion (RPE), heart rate (HR) and time to exhaustion during exercise. Twenty-three volunteers participated in four exercise sessions. An accommodation, progressive maximum test, and two exercise sessions (one with and one without music) were completed on a treadmill by each subject. The progressive maximum test established maximum heart rates and workloads of 70 percent and 85 percent of maximum for each subject. Subjects then took the music and non-music treatments in a counterbalanced order. For each treatment condition, subjects worked at 70 percent of their maximum heart rate for eight minutes and then at 85 percent of their maximum heart rate for eight minutes. At this point the treadmill grade was increased by 2 percent each minute until the subjects reached voluntary exhaustion. HR and RPE were recorded at regular intervals and time to exhaustion was recorded in seconds. A two-way (treatment x workload) analysis of variance with repeated measures on both factors was used to analyze RPE and HR with and without music. No significant between treatment differences for RPE or HR were found at either workload. A paired t-test was used to analyze time to exhaustion. The result of this analysis revealed that subjects exercised longer with the presence of background music. It was concluded that while the presence of music does not appear to influence HR or RPE it does promote increases in work duration.