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What is the best BPM for workout music? There is no single ideal number, because the right tempo depends on how hard you are working. In one lab study, people pedaling an exercise bike did not prefer slow music at 95 to 100 beats per minute at any effort level, and their preference for fast music at 135 to 140 bpm grew, relative to the other tempos, as the effort went up. A reasonable rule of thumb builds on that: medium tempo for easy and steady work, faster tempo for hard work, and slower music only when you are winding down.
That rule is a starting point, not a prescription. The research behind it is thinner than many playlist guides suggest, so here is what it actually says.
Does music help you work out
Mostly yes. A large summary of this research is a 2020 meta-analysis of 139 studies with more than three thousand participants in total. It found that music was associated with better affective valence (how good the exercise feels), better physical performance, lower perceived exertion and more efficient oxygen use.
Two details matter for anyone choosing songs.
- Feeling better was the biggest effect. Of the outcomes above, the mood effect was the largest, and the performance effect came second. Music changes how a workout feels more than what your body can do
- Your heart does not work less. The authors write that "No significant benefit of music was found for heart rate". Music can make the same effort feel easier, but it is still the same effort
The same analysis found that performance effects depended on tempo, with fast music doing better than slow to medium music. That is where the question of BPM comes in.
What studies found about tempo
A widely cited study on tempo and effort is a 2011 experiment by Karageorghis and colleagues. In it, 28 active undergraduate students rode exercise bikes at a series of rising intensities while rating how much they liked music in four tempo bands.
| Band | Tempo in the study |
|---|---|
| Slow | 95 to 100 bpm |
| Medium | 115 to 120 bpm |
| Fast | 135 to 140 bpm |
| Very fast | 155 to 160 bpm |
The result is easiest to read in the authors' own words: "Whereas slow tempo music was not preferred at any exercise intensity, preference for fast tempo increased, relative to medium and very fast tempo music, as exercise intensity increased."
Three things are worth keeping in mind before you treat those bands as rules.
- It measured liking, not results. People rated the music they preferred. The study did not test whether the preferred tempo made them faster or fitter
- Faster is not always better. The very fast band did not win at high effort. The fast band did
- It was one small group on bikes. A group of 28 active students cycling in a lab is a narrow sample. Treat the numbers as a sensible guide, not a law
How to match workout music tempo to your effort
Put the two studies together and you get a simple way to pick a good BPM for a workout.
- Warming up. Start with something in or near the medium band. The NHS warm up routine has you march on the spot and "Pump your arms up and down in rhythm with your steps", which is easier to do with a steady, moderate beat than a frantic one
- Steady cardio. Medium to fast music suits most of a session. If you can still talk but not sing, you are working at a moderate effort, and a tempo you enjoy can make that stretch feel better
- Hard intervals. Save the fast band for the hardest parts. That is where the 2011 study saw preference for fast music rise
- Winding down. Drop the tempo as your effort drops, so the music stops pushing you once you want to recover
There is also a difference between music in the background and music you move to. In a 2012 study, cyclists used less oxygen when their pedaling matched the beat than when the music was slightly slower than their movement. The authors concluded that "exercise is more efficient when performed synchronously with music than when musical tempo is slightly slower than the rate of cyclical movement." It was a very small study of 10 young men, and it found no difference in heart rate or perceived exertion, so read it as a hint rather than proof. Still, if your workout has a rhythm, such as steps, punches or pedal strokes, choosing music at the pace of that rhythm makes sense.
This is also why moving to a beat can turn exercise into something closer to a game. The beat gives you a target to hit, which is part of what makes workouts that feel like a game easier to come back to. A rhythm game workout builds the whole session around that idea.
Why slow music still has a place
None of this means slow music is wrong for exercise. It means slow music is wrong for hard exercise.
Some practices are slow by design. Qigong, gentle stretching and balance work move at a deliberate pace, and fast music would pull you out of that rhythm. The same goes for the last few minutes of a session, when your breathing is settling. A slow track there matches what your body is doing rather than fighting it.
The broader point from the meta-analysis holds at any tempo: music mostly helps by making exercise feel better. If a song makes you want to keep going, that matters more than whether it lands in the right band. Feeling good during a workout is one of the things that helps people stay consistent with working out, and consistency does more for you than any single perfect playlist.
Where ShakeFit fits
ShakeFit is a rhythm workout game for your phone. Each track plays over original music at a set tempo, and you move on its beat. On camera tracks, ShakeFit counts your reps and counted reps get a grade word, which is a game score, not a measure of how hard you are working. Use the talk test for that.
The tempo changes with the style. Of the 93 tracks across Aerobics, Power, Dance Pop, Boxing, Qigong, Bachata, Salsa, and Swing and jazz, the ten Qigong tracks are the slowest by a wide margin. They are guided tracks you follow without the camera or grading, which suits a practice that is meant to be calm. The tracks in the other genres run at much faster tempos, built for moves like punches, steps and knee lifts. If you want to know whether dancing to those tracks counts, we covered whether dancing counts as exercise separately.
To be clear, no study has tested ShakeFit itself. The research above is about music and exercise in general, and the tempo bands came from people on exercise bikes, not people playing a game on their phone.
ShakeFit is entertainment and general fitness software, not a medical device. If you have a health condition or are new to exercise, talk to a doctor first, and stop if you feel pain or dizziness.
ShakeFit Plus adds adaptive weekly plans, long-term growth reports, custom sessions with tempo control and 5, 10 or 20-minute options depending on available movements, and full play of the 27 level 3 tracks
Questions people ask
What BPM is good for a workout?
It depends on the effort. In a lab study, people cycling did not prefer slow music at 95 to 100 bpm at any effort level, and their preference for fast music at 135 to 140 bpm rose with the effort. A practical guide is medium tempo, around 115 to 120 bpm, for warming up and steady work, faster music for hard intervals and slower music for winding down.
Is faster music better for working out?
Up to a point. A meta-analysis found that fast music did better than slow to medium music for performance, and a cycling study found preference for fast tempo rose with effort. But the very fast band, 155 to 160 bpm, was not preferred over the fast band at high effort. Faster helps for hard work, but not without limit.
Does music make a workout feel easier?
It tends to. A meta-analysis of 139 studies found music was associated with lower perceived exertion and a more positive mood during exercise. It found no significant effect on heart rate, so music changes how the effort feels rather than how hard your body is working.
Sources
- Terry and colleagues, Effects of music in exercise and sport: A meta-analytic review, Psychological Bulletin, 2020
- Karageorghis and colleagues, Revisiting the relationship between exercise heart rate and music tempo preference, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 2011
- Bacon and colleagues, Effect of music-movement synchrony on exercise oxygen consumption, Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, 2012
- NHS, How to warm up before exercising