The Effect of Listening to Personal Music on 1,500-Meter Walking Time in Female High School Students

Background: The importance of physical activity (PA) is a well-established; most youth carry out PA in educational settings.

Purpose: To study the impact of listening to a personal choice of rhythmic music on the 1,500 m track walking time of female high-school students.

Methods: Thirty-one non-athletic female high-school students, age 17.1±0.8 y (M±SD), were randomly selected from a large high-school in central Israel. The subjects performed 1,500 m walking on a track on three separate occasions, under two conditions wearing smartphone headphones: 1) Listening to personally-selected rhythmic music (M); 2) Two baseline walking sessions without music (NM). All walks were carried out in a randomized order. Walking time and heart rate (HR) were recorded at 400, 800, 1,200 and 1,500 m. Rate of perceived exertion (RPE) was recorded immediately following the 1,500 m walk; HR was also recorded during a 10-min recovery from the walk. The data were analyzed using Student t-test, RM ANOVA, and Bonferroni Post Hoc tests.

Results: Walking speed, RPE and HR were significantly higher under M compared to NM conditions (1.93±0.1 vs 2.00±0.1 m/s, p 0.001 and 177±18 vs 169 ±14 b/min, p 0.028; RPE 11.9±1.4 vs 12.5±1.8, p0.037). Poor correlations were found between height, weight and BMI (body mass index) and walking speed.

Conclusions: Personally-selected music should be favorably considered by physical education teachers as an effective tool for improving aerobic exercise and leisure physical activity performance among high-school girls. Further studies are needed to verify the effects of music among high-school boys.