The Ultimate Workout Playlist by a Greek Scientist

Proper physical exercise in a gym or elsewhere should be accompanied by the appropriate music. For this reason, a Greek scientist has created the “ultimate” workout playlist using Spotify, a digital music service.

According to British newspaper The Telegraph, Dr. Costas Karageorghis, deputy Head of Research at the School of Sport and Education, Brunel University London, analyzed more than 6.7 million tracks from the huge database of Spotify, until he gathered all those meeting specific scientific standards, as a musical background to a workout, either at the gym or at home.

The tracks have been selected to accompany the consecutive phases of a workout (mental – spiritual preparation, stretching, aerobics, heart exercises, strength training) and at different levels of intensity (low – medium – high – very high).

Karageorghis, who is an internationally renowned expert on sports psychology, claims that the synchronization of movements with the beat of the music is beneficial in an almost unnoticeable way. Even when the body is tired, music has the power to revive aching limbs and to help you continue. The choice of music therefore plays a significant role in whether someone will manage to follow a training program.

The research group led by Karageorghis has shown clear differences between men and women in terms of the music that motivates them while exercising. For example, men prefer to lift weights to the sounds of the “Eye of the Tiger” from the movie “Rocky III,” while women prefer tracks by Rihanna or Lady Gaga. Furthermore, women tend to exercise early in the morning, to the sounds of rhythmic pop, while men prefer the afternoon and classic rock or aggressive hip-hop such as “Till I Collapse” by Eminem.

The ultimate playlist according to Karageorghis is as follows:

1. Roar – Katy Perry (mental-spiritual preparation)

2. Talk Dirty – Jason Derulo ft 2 Chainz (stretching)

3. Skip To The Good Bit – Rizzle Kicks (stretching)

4. Get Lucky – Daft Punk ft Pharrel Williams (aerobics/warm-up)

5. Move – Little Mix (aerobics/warm-up)

6. Need U 100% – Duke Dumont ft A*M*E (heart exercises, low intensity)

7. You Make Me – Avicii (heart exercises, low intensity)

8. Feel My Rhythm – Viralites (heart exercises, medium intensity)

9. Timber – Pitbull ft Ke$ha (heart exercises, medium intensity)

10. Applause – Lady Gaga (heart exercises, high intensity)

11. Can’t Hold Us – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis ft Ray Dalton (heart exercises, very high intensity)

12. Happy – Pharrell Williams (heart exercises, very high intensity)

13. The Monster – Eminem ft Rihanna (strength training exercise)

14. Love Me Again – John Newman (strength training exercise)

15. Get Down – Groove Armada ft Stush and Red Rat (strength training exercise)

16. #thatPOWER – will.i.am ft Justin Bieber (strength training exercise)