Influence of music on performance and psychophysiological responses during moderate-intensity exercise preceded by fatigue

- Time to exhaustion is not influenced by the music.
- Prior fatigue reduces performance and listening to music cannot reverse this effect.
- Listening to music seems draw the attentional focus away from internal sensations of fatigue.
- Listening to music distracted feelings of fatigue, but the decision to finish the exercise is based on RPE.

PurposeWe examined the effects of listening to music on time to exhaustion and psychophysiological responses during moderate-intensity exercise performed in fatigued and non-fatigued conditions.MethodsFourteen healthy men performed moderate-intensity exercise (60% Wmax) until exhaustion under four different conditions: with and without pre-fatigue (induced by 100 drop jumps) and listening and not listening to music.ResultsTime to exhaustion was lower in the fatigued than the non-fatigued condition regardless listening to music. Similarly, RPE was higher in the fatigued than the non-fatigued condition, but music had no effect. On the other hand, listening to music decreased the associative thoughts regardless of fatigue status. Heart rate was not influenced by any treatment.ConclusionThese results suggest that listening to music changes attentional focus but is not able to reverse fatigue-derived alteration of performance.