How is everyone doing today? For myself, I am doing pretty well after feeling a bit under the weather yesterday. Sometimes for me it's not so much of having a flu bug or cold. It is more my body saying "Dude enough can we just stop for a day and let's rest". I personally am not that good at taking a day off, but yesterday that day came and I feel much better for it.

The power of music while working out is undeniable. There are actual scientific studies that prove this theory. In a review in the "Annals of Sports Medicine and Research" they determined that music is a legal performance - enhancing drug. This finding forced the US governing body for running competitions in 2007 to bar the use of personal listening devices at official races. In 1998 Ethiopian athlete and 2,000 meter specialist Haile Gebrselassie managed to convince event organizers to play the song "Scatman" over the sound system during the indoor 2000-meter race. Haile had practiced with this song and knew it was the perfect song to match his running cadence and stride. He ended up breaking the world record at that race. There is even a sports psychologist at Brunel University named Costa Karageoghis. He works with elite athletes all over the world to help create custom playlists for training and competitions. Costa's music algorithms are even used to create a large portion of the workout playlist on several of your music streaming services that you will find yourself listening to while at the gym.

We all probably have our favorite songs we like to listen to while we are working out. Some of us will even go so far as to skip songs to find that perceived perfect song to amp ourselves up just before a big lift or a hard part of the workout. What is your go to song? I have quite a few go to songs when I am working out. They are usually within the punk music genre. I will typically use these songs when I am needing to dig deep prior to a big lift. But my favorite songs are the songs I listen to when I am doing a hard trail run or when I am running in a race. I like to finish these hard trail runs with one song in particular. When I am spent and I know that I have to dig deeper and find energy to finish I will always turn to "Walk" by the "Foo Fighters". This song will always pour all my emotions out of me. I first used this song when I did my first 1/2 marathon and I needed everything I could find in me so I could cross the finishing line running. This song served as a catalyst to remind me of where I had come back from in life and where I was heading to. I hope each of you have that powerful song in your lives that will always lift you up and send you across each finishing line. If not, find it because the power of music is undeniable.

https://open.spotify.com/track/76Je5Wklky23mVoxiRszcN?si=9f3f3cb9815444c6

Thanks for reading and as always your thoughts and comments are always welcome.