by Miranda Mayhew Stadnisky/Fitness Trainer

With my short attention span, I definitely prefer heavy music with hard pounding, double-bass beats and captivating lyrics. My workouts have to be dynamic too – particularly when it comes to cardiovascular work. I love to run, and I almost always fit intervals in to my running workout. Intervals of fast sprints and easy jogs are easy to measure from hydro pole to hydro pole out on the street, and the motivation to get back home drives my engine in those workouts.  Pushing myself to work hard on the treadmill is more of a challenge, and this is where the right music is key. My treadmill intervals usually consist of one minute bursts of increased speed followed by one minute at a moderate pace to recover, then 2 minutes of steady incline, recovering for two minutes. I will repeat this in no particular pattern until my 30 minute workout is complete. If you have never tried this before, you will be amazed at how quickly thirty minutes flashes by when you are focusing on the minutes.  Now, add the music. These intervals are pretty grueling and I would not push through as hard without a little help from my friends – namely the boys of Tool, System of a Down, Garden of Bedlam and Korn. These bands produce the best music that I’ve found to fuel my interval running workouts. It’s a short list and I’m sure there are plenty more that I’m missing out on, I just don’t have time to look for them! 
Here is a sample of my interval workout with the corresponding songs that move me during my treadmill workout (I set them up on my MP3 player in order and just switch to the next song with each interval:

Minutes One and Two – easy jog: Tool – Aenima
Minutes Three and Four – increase speed to 6.5 mph:
Minute Five – recover: Tool – Jambi
Minutes Six and Seven – increase incline to level 8: Maynard and Chino
Moreno – Passenger
Minutes Eight and Nine – recover: SOAD – War
Minutes Ten and Eleven – increase speed to 7.5 mph: Garden of Bedlam - Shallow
Minutes Twelve and Thirteen – recover: Korn – Y’all Want a Single
Minutes Fourteen and Fifteen – increase incline to level 10: SOAD – Toxicity

…and so on…

This may take some time to load in this order to my MP3 player, but it makes a world of difference in my workout. Try it with your favourite genre of music and enjoy your workout rush – you’ll be done before you
even realize!