Whitney Houston may just be an Olympic athlete’s best friend.

Working as psychologist for Great Britain’s bobsleigh team at the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, Peter Terry, Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia witnessed firsthand the effective use of music in sport.

Nagano was widely perceived to be the British team’s medal year—for inspiration while training and on competition days the athletes listened to Whitney Houston’s resonant “One Moment in Time” while visualizing sweet victory—they won a bronze medal.

The same song proved a charm for double trap gold medallist Richard Faulds at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

“The last piece of music that one hears prior to an event tends to stick in the mind; therefore, particular care must be taken in selecting it,” says Dr. Costas Karageorghis, senior lecturer in the School of Sport and Education, Brunel University, United Kingdom.

Working partners Terry and Karageorghis, both of whom are exercise and sport psychologists, have spent more than a decade collaborating on research regarding the ergogenic and stress-relieving effects of music in relation to sport and exercise.

“Music is often an untapped source of both motivation and inspiration for sport and exercise participants. The experience of moving in time to a well-loved piece of music can be almost magical. One important point to remember is that musical preference is very personal. We avoid suggesting which music should be prescribed for athletes. It’s important to be aware of factors that make listening to music more rewarding in both sport and exercise settings,” says Dr. Karageorghis.

Research based on the experiences of elite athletes suggests that it’s important to coordinate music to specific activities in order to derive optimum benefits.

“This enables you to regulate your stride rate, for example, which makes a hard run seem less arduous. It also enhances the stylistic aspects of your movements. Ethiopian Haile Gebreselassie is famous for setting world records running in time to the rhythmical pop song Scatman. You’ll need to find your own equivalent of Scatman that coincides with your optimal stride rate,” advises Dr. Karageorghis.

He recommends using background music to elevate your mood or to relieve the monotony of repetitious training exercises and maneuvers.

“If distraction is an important consideration, the volume of the music needs to be set quite high, but not so high that it becomes uncomfortable and leaves a ringing sound in your ears.”

Fitness Notes:

Research by Karageorghis and Terry reveals the following good effects of music on sport and exercise:

• Music can narrow your perception, diverting your mind from thoughts of fatigue, which lowers your perception of effort—this resulting disassociation can promote a more positive mood state.
• By altering emotion and physiological arousal, music can stimulate/sedate athletes prior to performance, which helps them to achieve the appropriate mindset.
• The synchronization of music with repetitive exercises such as rowing, cycling, and running, increases endurance by regulating motion and extending performance.
• The rhythmical elements of music help in the acquisition of motor skills and create an environment more conducive to learning.

A recent study from Ohio State University suggests that the combination of exercise and music may even make you smarter—a group of patients on the mend from heart problems listened to Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” while working out on treadmills and subsequently achieved higher scores on verbal fluency tests.

Strong rhythms, an invigorating melody and harmony and a tempo that corresponds to predicted heart rate produce the most inspiring effect on athletic performance. Deftly selected, music can help put you in a “flow state” according to Dr. Karageorghis.

“The music should also stem from the athlete’s socio-cultural background and comply with his or her preferences. Ideally it should be associated with physical activity, either through its lyrics, for example, ‘Keep on Running,’ or its association with other media such as film and TV. A classic example of such a track would be Survivor’s ‘Eye of the Tiger,’ which was a theme from the Rocky film series, or Vangelis’s ‘Chariots of Fire,’ which is strongly associated with Olympic glory,” reports Dr. Karageorghis.

“Music is one of the few remaining legal drugs with the added advantage of no nasty side effects!”