exercise

I’ve been spending a lot of time at the gym lately (though this week I’ve got a terrible head cold with congestion, snot, and a nasty sore throat so I’ve been sparing the other gym goers and staying home).

When I’m at the gym I’m still chipping away at Couch to 5k. I’ve completed week 6 but now I keep repeating it because week 7, which calls for 3 days of jogging 2.5 miles or 25 minutes without stopping, intimidates me so much.

One thing that’s helped me immensely through weeks 1 through 6 is listening to the right music. I’ve been using a couple different tools to create my playlists.

How to Determine the right BPM for your walking, jogging, or running pace

The first is Jog.fm (free website). I tell it what pace I jog at (14 minutes miles for me – I can jog but not fast) and it tells me what the right BPM (beats per minute) is. Imagine each time I put a foot down being a beat and matching those movements up to the music. It’s sort of a subconcious way to maintain the right pace. I run on a treadmill at the gym so I have to keep the pace or I’d fall off the back but I’ve set up walking playlists that I’ve used while walking outside and can see from my Runkeeper (free iPhone GPS app that tells you how far you went and how fast) data that I naturally keep the pace my music sets when I use it there.

After I tell jog.fm that my mile time is 14 minutes, it tells me that the right BPM for that pace is about 110 and gives a list of songs at or very close to that number.

But I’ve already got a massive iTunes library and I love to make use of what I already have. So I found a second tool that helps me determine the BPM of the songs I already have.

How to find the BPM of the songs you already have

From the Apple App Store I purchased the app Cadence Desktop Pro for $6.99. I’ve experimented with other software over the years and this is the first one I found that really worked. It analyzes your songs (took overnight for the first go of many thousands of songs in my library) and then export that BPM data back to your iTunes library.

How to create playlists that will have your favorite songs at the right BPM for your pace

In iTunes, I make smart playlists for various paces so my 14 minute mile jogging playlist uses the rule BPM is in the range 108 to 112. I add a few other optional rules like the song should have 4 or 5 stars and not been played within the last week to keep it to the songs I really like but haven’t just heard and then play that playlist while I’m on the treadmill doing my Couch to 5k workout at the gym.

Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links. If you order through my link I’ll get a small commission that’ll help me pay my hosting fees. I’ve purchased this product myself at full price and truly recommend it.

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