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Is music a muse for athletic performance?

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Runner’s World magazine a few years ago asked an expert in music and athletic performance to recommend the best songs to listen to while running. British professor Costas Karageorghis selected songs with a particular number of beats per minute (120) and other factors to get folks moving:

“The Heat Is On” by Glenn Frey;
“Reach” by S Club 7;
“Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” by the Blues Brothers; and “William Tell Overture” by Rossini.

Really? We’ll just stick with “Gonna Fly Now,” a.k.a. the “Rocky” theme song.

But can a song shave minutes off your best 5K time? Julie Deardorff of the Chicago Tribune blog Julie’s Health Club asks Karageorghis: “Does music enhance athletic performance?”

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--Mary Forgione / For the Los Angeles Times

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