After a tiring day at school, Diana Gorin, varsity cross country and junior, switches out of her flats and slips into her favorite pair of Nike LunarEclipse+3 tennis shoes. With music on full blast, Gorin jogs down the trail to cross country practice, listening to her favorite rock song, “The Crash” by London Calling. Gorin, like many athletes today, listens to music while exercising to help motivate and drive forward her routine. But does music impact the results of her workouts?

According to a March 2013 Scientific American article “Let’s Get Physical: The Psychology of Effective Workout Music,” research showed listening to music while working out can increase athletic performance, sometimes without the athletes’ knowledge.

For Gorin, listening to music is something she’s experimented with before.

“I’ve looked at runs and compared a couple of different times when I was listening to music and when I was running without music and when I ran with music,” Gorin said. “With (music), I got a lot faster because you’re trying to match the beat of the song and you’re not focused on how tired you are or any other factor.”

Stephen Curtis, IU Health Sports Performance clinical and performance psychologist, said those physical effects stem from the psychological level.

“Music has an impact on emotions, and emotions have a large impact on performance levels. If a person listens to music, it’s been found that the heart rate of a person listening to music tends to move to the beat of the music, so if it’s fast music, the heart rate can go up, if it’s slow music, heart rate can go down,” Curtis said.  “A person listening to high and fast music probably can be more energized, with higher heart rates.”

Curtis’s observations hold true for Gorin; her choice of workout music includes alternative rock and rap, genres she said have an upbeat tempo and allow her to concentrate less on her breathing and more on increasing endurance.

“If you’re just listening to some hardcore rap or like some really good pump-up songs, it just really gets you excited to race and gets you really focused on the goals that you want to accomplish,” Gorin said. “On the other hand, when I listen to classical music when I run, I get really frustrated and I know I probably slow down because of that so I just hit the next song and get back with the beat.”

Although music may be beneficial to some athletes’ workouts, Adrian Thomas, junior varsity tennis player and junior, said listening to it while working out is something that takes getting used to.

“For people who don’t normally listen to music when they work out, I would say try it first; I would say try it and see if it affects (the workout) differently,” Thomas said. “I wouldn’t say this is the right way because some people run in total silence. I would say try it, but I wouldn’t say it’s the right way.”

Thomas said he sometimes experiences a downfall by listening to music.

“I think one thing that happens when I listen to music when I work out is I can get really used to the beat and comfortable to it, and then I find myself playing tennis at a sporting event, a sport that can have loud crowds but typically do not and it’s just you out there, and sometimes if I’m listening to blaring music when I work out and then it’s just me during the match that’s not loud, I’ve noticed that I’m off balance,” Thomas said.

Curtis said people who don’t normally listen to music while exercising should try it with caution.

“I think for a large percentage of people, music can help them. But some people just really don’t enjoy music,” Curtis said. “Some athletes go to the gym to work out and make sure the music is off because it annoys (them) and hinders their workout.”

However, for Gorin, music is something she said she will continue to use in order to boost the effectiveness of her workouts.

“It’s really easy to get lost in the music and not focus on the breathing and other factors and just focus on running and (it) makes you go faster,” Gorin said. “(Music) might occasionally distract me if I’m not listening to (a song) with a good beat, but when I’m listening to a really pumped-up song, then I get focused on that and then I feel a lot happier about my workout afterwards.”