Music for Fitness

Summer 2019. I just got back from a three week trip around Wales in my campervan when a friend and business associate calls me to say that he has taken on a big project to record a series of fitness podcasts.

The client will be bringing in a team of leading instructors to the studio to record workouts for a new audio-led fitness start-up. There will be a producer producing the content, and a model to do the workout in the live room. The recordings will then be mixed with a motivational music bed. They want to record a LOT of content and could I come onboard to engineer some of the sessions? … Sure!

Jump to 2022 and With U Training have become one of the leading companies in the online fitness arena. Their on-demand audio coaching app WithU is now available globally in four different languages.

Along with recording many hours of audio workouts, a few months after the project began Freethos Music won the contract to curate and produce all of the music beds for hundreds of workouts available through the app. From Bodyweight Strength and HIIT, to Boxing and Yoga.

Off the back of this we have produced music mixes for the gym brand Fitness Space and supervised music for a new fitness channel launching on Sky Glass.

But it hasn’t all been plain sailing. In 2020 production came up against unprecedented challenges in the face of the Pandemic, which forced recordings to be done at home with many hours of Zoom sessions.

So what makes a great music mix for a workout? Where do you find those killer tracks to get your blood pumping? And how do you put it all together? This guide is for anyone looking to sound track their workout sessions.

Ready and warmed up? … Lets dive in.

What is music for fitness?

For some the concept of a fitness soundtrack is Hi-NRG, Europop or EDM played at a fast tempo for ripped bodies is spandex. But although this audio visual image has some relevance, in reality the bigger picture is far more sophisticated.

On a personal level, regardless of genre the choice of music can simply be anything that get’s you motivated to move your body. Dance music by it’s design is written and produced to get the listener up off their seat, moving the hips or at the very least tapping the hands or feet.

From a young age I have always loved dancing. Not only is it one of the simplest physical activities we can do to get moving, the benefits for our body and mind are tremendous. How good, or badly you think you can dance doesn’t matter when no one is watching.

An exercise workout in a similar principle is choreographed physical activity to improve our health and fitness and is often targeted to benefit specific areas of the body. Finding a piece of music that helps you do that is fundamental to the goal.

Like exercise, music can help the body to release endorphins. It lifts us up to get in the mood to exercise in the first place, helps to push through the pain and keep us motivated to cross the finish line.

A good groove can also be useful for timing our movements, and one of the key elements linking music with the movement of our bodies is rhythm.

Choosing Music in Context

Rhythm vs Tempo

Picking your workout soundtrack based on rhythm is a good place to start, rather than the tempo or pace of the music. Although often linked, the two terms shouldn’t be confused as rhythm tends to match the cadence of an exercise better then tempo.

Lets take running as an example. A 4x4 house music or dance rhythm is often the groove of choice for a runner to get into. Naturally it matches the repetitive nature of running.

The tempo range in these genres is roughly 120 – 130 beats per minute. However the pace of some runners can be a lot higher.

In one recording session I measured the pace of British Olympic 400m sprinter and With U coach Tim Benjamin. On the treadmill Tim’s pace topped 156 strides per minute.

To match that with music of the same tempo is difficult. Not a lot of music exists at that tempo with a 4x4 rhythm, and the stuff that does tends to be harder styles.

There’s also a balance to be drawn between perfect rhythm and tempo and what most people actually enjoy listening too. Hard techno might match the pace of a lot of runners but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

More prevalent in the 150bpm tempo range are genres that have a broken rhythm, or breakbeat such as Future Bass where the rhythm is actually half time, giving the perception of a slower tempo. For this reason Future Bass and associated sub-genres are great for workout sessions where slower exercises, such as those involving dumbbells are integrated with HIIT rounds.

Rhythm vs Tempo

The tempo range of most dance music is roughly 120 – 130 beats per minute. However the pace of some runners can be a lot higher.

Tone & Timbre

The disciplines of body weight strength, dumbbells and kettle bells can call for slower rhythms to match the slow, controlled cadence of lifting.

Alongside rhythm the tone of the music plays a big part, maintaining motivation with a more intense tone in the music.

There’s a whole dictionary of adjectives to describe tonal characteristics of music that are entirely subjective. Hard, gritty, raw etc. You know what I mean, but some slower styles of music can be too chilled unless something in the track gives it an edge, and that usually includes vocals. There’s nothing quite a like a brilliant vocal element in a track to push you forward.

At the other end of the spectrum, in curating the sound track for a yoga session, where there are few opportunities to include vocal tracks and less focus on rhythm, tone is possibly the most important thing to take into consideration.

The common experience of Yoga is often accompanied by a cliched sound scape of wispy synths, distant bells and unintelligible chanting. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

The music beds for some Yoga Shred sessions – a fusion of yoga and fitness moves – were some of the most exciting projects to work on and offered a chance to experiment on the theme with some instrumental trip hop and beats.

Instrumentals vs Vocals

In the early days of curating music for the podcasts we generally stuck to instrumentals, simply because the music interfered less with the instructional dialogue the trainers were delivering.

However over time as trainers became more confident in the booth, and we (producing the music mixes) found new techniques to edit vocal tracks we added more vocals into the mix. This gave us a lot more options for raising the intensity of a workout section. It also added variation, so the music sounded less repetitive and expanded the available repertoire.

The downside of using vocal tracks is they are more complex to edit if you are restructuring your music mixes. Full songs especially, as once you start rearranging them the song begins to make less sense. In this situation using vocal stems will give you more flexibility in the edit.

Stems are individual audio files of the various parts which make up a complete track. Most music libraries provide their songs in stem format and they are usually supplied in 4 parts – drums, bass, instruments and vocals. Using stems gives content creators more flexibility to edit the music.

Where to find music for your workouts.

Your preferred music streaming service is the obvious choice for curating your power playlists. However the options available to you could differ depending on where your workout takes place and how your audience will be listening to the music. Another factor is whether you wish to edit the music to create your own bespoke mixes, but we’ll come to that a bit later.

Most bricks and mortar gyms, halls and sports centres in the UK pay for an annual license from PRS/PPL, commonly known as The Music License. This allows for commercial music to be played on the premises, and the money collected is distributed to the artists, labels and publishers who own the copyrights in the music.

The cost of the fee is generally calculated by square footage of the premises, sometimes the capacity and opening hours amongst other factors.

There are specific tariffs for fitness & dance. A basic rate covers general background music, while extra bolt-ons are required for fitness classes and dance lessons. So if you hire a gym space, or you own a similar establishment obtaining the correct Music License will cover you to play music in your workout sessions.

There is sometimes confusion over why fitness classes require an extra fee. It’s basically down to how crucial music is to your business. It’s widely recognised (as we’ve discussed so far) that music is a pretty important element of a workout, but you may not be running classes all day. The variable tariffs offer some flexibility around paying for the music you are using day to day.

A restaurant only playing background music in the evenings might pay a bit less, whereas a business such as a music venue will pay a significantly higher license fee because music is the main focus of the business.

Can I use royalty free music for my workout?

Yes you can. There are a many organisations that operate outside of the PRS/PPL royalty system and license their music direct to the consumer. Often you pay a monthly fee based on how much music you use, and what you want to use it for.

Epidemic Sound is one of the major players in this field, but there are hundreds of other platforms offering a similarly cheap and easy way to license music direct. Although you won’t find your favourite Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran tracks through these services, in recent years the quality has been extremely good.

Production Music

Music from these companies is broadly classified as ‘production music’, which is written specifically for use in media productions, TV, film and games. As opposed to ‘commercial music’ released by known artists that you might hear on the radio or stream through Spotify.

MCPS the sister company to PRS offer a range of production music licenses on behalf of the thousands of composers and publishers they represent. Which means you can purchase a blanket license to cover all sorts of uses, and gain access to a vast cumulative library of music making it a great choice if you want to host your workout online, or do something really cool like build an app.

Which brings us on to the final stage…

Splicing it all together

So you’ve found a bunch of kicking tunes to work those glutes, you’ve curated a playlist either through your fave streaming platform or one of the cool music libraries and you’re ready to pump.

But rather than just play a string of tunes end to end what if you could craft the ultimate bespoke mix that is structured specifically to your workout session? A seamless blend of music that builds in intensity when you are working at your hardest, and rests when you rest. At Freethos Music that is exactly what we have been doing for our clients in the fitness industry.

Whether you are delivering a HIIT class or a dumbbell strength session we can source, edit and produce tailored music mixes for your business.

Drop us a line to discuss your project.