Pick the Best Walking Music to Maximize Your Walking Workouts

Listening to walking music is a great way to boost your energy and pass the time while fitness walking. Listening to our favorite upbeat music gives us energy. Maybe you tap your fingers or move your feet to the beat. The good news is that you can use this energy to improve your walking workouts.

A study conducted at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia found that students were able to go 11 percent further while listening to music than students listening to static or no music at all. Upon completion of exercise, the students who listened to music reported lower levels of exertion than students who listened to silence or static.

This study indicates that walking music is a very powerful tool. It can help you walk further and feel less tired than walking without music.

Walking music can truly be a motivational tool. Here are some helpful tips to help pick the right songs for you.

Pick the Perfect Pace

Try to listen to music that matches your walking pace. If you listen to music that is too slow, you may slow your walking pace without even realizing it. Instead, choose a tempo that matches your pace or is slightly faster than your pace to keep your energy level up. Here are some guidelines for every level of fitness walking.

Beginners should listen to slow walking music, which has a tempo of 115 to 118 beats per minute.
Intermediate walkers can listen to brisk walking music, which has a tempo of 118 to 126 beats per minute.
Advanced walkers should listen to fast walking music, which has a tempo of 130 to 138 beats per minute.
Power walkers can listen to power walking music, which has a tempo of 137 or more beats per minute.

How to Find Walking Music

It can be difficult to determine the beats per minute for a song. It often isn't available on popular music downloading sites or on the album itself. Conduct an internet search for a site named Best Workout Music. It has cataloged a variety of songs based on their beats per minute. You can pick the tempo you are interested in and it will provide you with a list of songs that you may like.

You can also buy a walking music CD. These CDs contain popular songs that have been recreated to match tempos that are appropriate for every level of fitness walking. Some of these CDs come with a recorded warm-up and cool-down session to provide you with a complete walking workout. You can find these CDs on many websites including iTunes and Amazon.

Now that your iPod or MP3 player is packed with great walking music, you are ready to start walking and experience the invigorating effect of walking music. Just remember to keep the volume low so that you can hear the sounds around you, such as traffic, animals and other people that share the road with you.

By Melissa Ellefsen

Melissa Ellefsen is passionate about fitness walking! Visit http://www.the-fitness-walking-guide.com for advice, recommendations and the latest news on all things related to fitness walking. For more great ideas about walking music, visit http://www.the-fitness-walking-guide.com/walking-music.html