Intro –
Music can be a very helpful tool for athletes in sports, athletes believe that it helps them take away the nerves before a game, or they will listen to music while needing a boost in adrenaline when doing a physical exercise such as weight lifting. Athletes will even listen to music to keep in rhythm or to remember a move or form. For example track runners will listen to music to keep a certain stride with the beat. This type of music is called sychronous music, this is songs that have a high uptempo beats and that also matches the constant movement in sports. These will all be discussed below, and more.
Synchronous and Asynchronous Music –
Synchronous music is music that has high uptempo beats per minute and that matches the continuous movement in sports such as running. Synchronous music has been heavily used in the world of sports. The reason why athletes use music for their gain, is because it is completely legal to use in sports. Athletes will use music while doing anaerobic excises, because the music helps the athlete block out the feeling of fatigue. Also athletes in sports that require competitive focus will use music for them to deal with pre competition anxiety. An athlete named Haile Gebrselassie that took this information to use when he used the famous rhythmical pop song called “Scatman” when breaking indoor 2000-metre world record in February 1998 (Karageorghis, 1998).
The use of asynchronous music is when there is music playing in the background when in the performance of physical exercise without any conscious effort to stay in time with the rhythm(Karageorghis and Terry, 1997).
To date, research has demonstrated the efficacy of both asynchronous music (Copeland and Franks, 1991; Ferguson et al., 1994) and synchronous music (Anshel and Marisi, 1978; Karageorghis and Jones, 2000; Mertesdorf, 1994; Michel and Wanner, 1973) in the context of long duration exercise tasks.
Tempo –
The tempo of a song can really make a song different and also it can make the listener feel differently depending on the tempo. For example listening to a slower tempo song can make you feel relaxed and calm. But when listening to higher tempo songs, it can make you feel more excited and pumped up. This is why athletes have different types of music to listen to depending on the situation. For example an athlete could be getting ready for a game and they want to get themselves pumped up for the game. The music they will listen to is a more higher tempo song that get there adrenaline pumping and resulting in them getting hyped up and ready for a game. Also another example is when an athlete could be dealing with pre competition stress and getting very nervous before a game. So for them to calm themselves down they will listen to a slow tempo song, for example jazz or anything calming and relaxing. This will help them be distracted away from the feeling of anxiety and stress. An scientist named Karageorghis et al. (1999) found out after research and testing, that music 120 BPM (Beats Per Minute) and a strong rhythm is the best for motivation and for physical improvements.
Genre of music –
In music there is a lot of different types of categories and genres, and people have there own choice on what genre of music they like. What i want to know is what each genre does to you and how it can help you in physically. So first i looked at the genre of rock music and what i found was that rock music isn't good to listen to during cardio and high intensity workouts and for keeping an rhythm because the changes in tempo, rhythm, and beat (Karageorghis, 1998). But depending on how much the person likes the song and how much they get motivated and pumped up by the song, they could still get a boost from the song. Also i found that listening to dance music is very good for strength tasks such as weight lifting, because of the hard and fast beats. This music helps because of the hard bass and beats that get you pumped up and motivated. Another genre that is good to be listening to is pop music. Its best to be listening to pop music during warm ups and cool downs (Karageorghis, 1998).
Heckling
When watching sports such as basketball or either football, how many plays have you seen when the crowd is very loud and creates a very pressured/clutch situation that leads the player to end up choosing a bad decision or messing up a play that just makes you think “how in the heck did he manage to mess up that badly’. Well there are many reasons why the player most probably ended up making that decision.
First the crowds can be and mostly will be very loud in an important play of the game. This makes it very hard for players to communicate and to call out plays to win the game, this dilemma leads to miss communication and the failure of a crucial play in the “clutch” of a game. Also when in a game of basketball the heckling and boo’s of a crowd can really put off a player and make it hard for a player to make a shot. This crowd heckling is heard a lot when basketball players need to make a free throw. Free throws in a game of basketball are one of the easiest shots to make but the loud crowd can make it a lot harder mentally deal with leading to players missing a easy free shot. This is why teams like to have the home court advantage so the crowd wont try to put off the players in situations they need to make a shot. For example a stat found with how important free throws are in a game of basketball shows that, “Free-throws constitute 35% of the points scored and in games decided by nine points or less, free-throws comprised 48% of the winning team's points during the last five minutes, and 69% during the last minute of the games” Ozar, Vaughn, Whitfield, Lord, & Dye (1994).
For example in the 2014-15 NBA Season, Houston Rockets vs Cleveland Cavaliers, the Cavaliers where down by 1 point with 12 seconds of the clock LeBron with the ball, he drives in towards the basket and puts up a layup shot misses the layup but gets fouled in the act of shooting leading to 2 free throws to win the game. This leaves 4 seconds left on the clock so there is no more time to win the game if he misses both free throws. LeBron gets the ball with the crowd booing and heckling him and making it very very hard for LeBron mentally. So LeBron goes threw his ritual, spins the ball in his hand, takes a deep breath and shoots the ball but he misses the first free throw. So LeBron needs to make this free throw to at least tie the game hopefully leading to overtime, but this time the crowd is even more louder, also the frustration and pressure of missing the first free throw is getting to him mentally. So again LeBron goes threw his ritual but this time he bounces the ball instead of spinning it, then he shoots the ball but again he misses then you can he the opposing crowd cheer in relief that he missed both shots. From LeBron missing both free throws the Cleveland Cavaliers lost the game. This goes to show how much a crowd heckling and irritating the player can really put off a player mentally.