Paper of the week: Listening to music can make your muscles bigger

Neumann, D. L., & Heng, S. (2011). The Effect of Associative and Dissociative Attentional Focus Strategies on Muscle Activity and Heart Rate During a Weight Training Exercise. Journal of Psychophysiology, 25(1), 1-8.

Mental focus during exercise can influence training outcomes. For instance, focusing on bodily sensations and performance cues (‘associative focus’) can improve training outcomes for some forms of exercise such as swimming and rowing, but not in others. Endurance running and leg extensions, for example, benefit from a ‘dissociative’ focus on external cues irrelevant to bodily sensations.

The goal of this study was to test which of these two focus strategies would benefit weight lifting. Subjects performed bicep curls under one of two focus conditions: dissociative, involving listening to the 90’s dance song “rhythm of the night”; and associative which required focus on muscle activity. Muscle activity was measured using EMG. Heart rate, subjective ratings of exertion, and joint movements were also measured.

Results showed that bicep EMG activity was significantly higher during dissociative focus compared to associative focus (0.37 μV, vs. 0.35 μV). Dissociative focus also produced faster bicep curl velocities (72.8 °/s vs. 70.5 for associative), and higher heart rates (91 bpm vs. 88 for associative). Subjective ratings were not significantly different between associative and dissociative conditions, however satisfaction ratings were found to be significantly higher overall when heavier weights were used.

This study demonstrated that a dissociative focus promoted greater muscle and cardiovascular effort during a bicep curl exercise. A dissociative focus strategy is also likely to provide greater distraction from muscle fatigue feedback, permitting prolongation of exercise duration. Listening to music may therefore have practical advantages where the goal is building strength or muscle mass.

23 December 2011