The Soundtrack of Your Workout

The hairs on my arms stand straight up and I get goosebumps. My heart starts pumping Kool-Aid and my adrenaline begins racing like Dale Earnhart Jr. at the Daytona 500. My intimidating face is masking the horror of what is about to occur. I know what you are thinking and the answer is no, I am not about to sky dive or perform an Evil Knievel type stunt. I have my eyes closed mentally preparing for my next excruciating set, and allowing the thundering music to fully amerce myself in the process. I wouldn't know where to begin if it wasn't for the music blaring in my ears.

A blind man with out his guide dog. Lost and unsure, and that is how I would feel with out my music in the gym. I once drove to the gym and realized I forgot my iTouch. I had to drive back home and get it, I had no other choice. Long story short, I have never forgotten it to this day. Bob Marley once said, "One good thing about music, when it hits, you feel no pain." So how does music get our adrenaline racing, and how does it exactly 'hit' us?

As human beings we are extremely emotional creatures. How often have you asked someone "What is your favorite type of music?" Somewhere along the line, someone presumably answered something similar to "Anything that I can relate to." I will never forget one time in my life when I thought I had hit rock bottom in college. I was resting in between sets of barbell curls wearing my black Nike shorts and a cut-off Avenged Sevenfold shirt. A song came on my MP3 player that might as well had been the soundtrack to my life at the time. The band was O.A.R. and the song was entitled, Shattered. The chorus goes "How many times can I break 'till I shatter?" It instantaneously reminded me of the hell that I had created for myself. It was as if my life had flashed before my eyes, an instantaneous revelation. The chorus finishes off by saying "I always turn the car around." Regardless of what the song might be about, you can interpret any song how you want and that is another beauty of music. This song's chorus perfectly symbolized how I felt and what I should do about it. Although I don't remember how many repetitions I did after being blessed by that music, I can tell you a couple things. I had so many goosebumps, someone might have assumed I had chicken pox. I was 6'2'' at the time, and by standing so tall with certainty and confidence, I felt 7'2''. Just from a 12 second chorus, my life did a complete 180 degree turn in the right direction. I had just been 'hit' by music.

Do you ever wonder why you always seem to listen to certain songs randomly throughout your life? There is nothing random about it. Yes you occasionally stumble upon new artists and follow through with listening to them, but you are listening to those other songs based upon how you relate to them, and how you are feeling at the time. I know there have been times in your life when you hear an amazing song for the first time in many months and you think to yourself, "I forgot how awesome this song was!" You say that because many months ago, at that time, it had a humungous impact on your life and you developed a relationship with it. Why do you think the biggest majority of high school and college students love listening to music involving partying? The answer is the same. We all have a relationship with music, many of us just don't know it, yet.

Your relationship with music can be identical to a relationship with your significant other, it even talks back! In the beginning when you first encounter that person or that specific song, everything is amazing and you just can't get enough. You go through the 'honeymoon' phase'. Then there are the times where you get sick of each other, and that could be anywhere from one day, to one year, to five years, or perhaps, that may never even happen. Sometimes you break up, but end up coming back to where you had originally left off, reminding yourself how awesome that song, or person was.

That is the power of music, and you should easily see why any type of music player is an essential ingredient in your gym bag. Use the power of music to 'hit' you in all aspects of your life, including your workouts. To those of you who are on the same page as me and are consistently getting 'hit' from various sources of music, I will leave you with this question. If you had to give up music or sex for a year, which one would it be? Judging by what you have read, take a shot in the dark and figure out what my answer is, I only talk about it through out this entire post. Then again, I have yet to do an article about sex...