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Tips for Making the Perfect Workout Playlist

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Wash U chapter.

One of the best parts about going to a workout class is that the music is pre-selected to fit exactly what you’re doing. But what happens if you go to the gym on your own? How do you choose a playlist that will work for you?

1. Make a huge playlist of songs you think could work and experiment with them

Figuring out what pace works for you is really important. For me, Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani is the perfect song to do crunches to, and Fade by Kanye West is a great song for step ups (I love to work out exactly to the beat). If you make a big enough playlist, you can skip through songs while you do each exercise until you find a song that’s perfect for it.

2.Pick high energy pump-up songs

Slower songs are great for warm ups and cool downs, but they aren’t going to motivate you to keep going. Upbeat songs are going to make you so much more excited to be working out! I personally think that it’s because upbeat songs make you want to dance and therefore make you want to move, but I think there’s actual science behind this one…I could be wrong.

3.Choose songs that you actually enjoy

Don’t just arbitrarily choose songs for your playlist because you think they’d be great to work out to. Songs that you genuinely enjoy are so much better because they’ll make you forget that you’re working out if you get really into them, and they will make the workout seem so much easier.

 

Get movin’!

By Elizabeth Baxter

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Wash U class of 2021; Majoring in Psychological and Brain Sciences with minors in Art History and Communication Design.