PhD, Associate Professor M.G. Shargina¹
PhD, Professor P.G. Smirnov¹
M.N. Salamatin^1
1Tyumen Industrial University, Tyumen

Keywords: musical accompaniment, efficiency, training process, musical style, strength training.

Background. Scientists have found great impacts of music on intellectual performance and physical fitness [3, 4]. In modern sports systems, music is often used to control the training process intensity and pace, with many people mobilizing themselves for workouts by active music for at least the following reasons:

• It mitigates/ delays muscle fatigue;

• Rhythmic music of specific style sets a movement pace and, hence, facilitates trainings;

• Musical accompaniment attunes and speeds up responses;

• Musical accompaniment effectively prolongs a training process.

“Music is legal doping for athletes,” maintains Dr. Kostas Karageorgis, School of Sports and Education Deputy Research Head at Brunel University. He reports in his last book ‘Inside Sport Psychology’ that musical accompaniment helps improve performance in running sport by up to 15% [5].

Modern kettlebell lifting trainings are always associated with high neuromuscular fatigues and overstrain that may effectively hamper progress and attempts to mobilize the individual resource in full. These negative effects may be mitigated by positive emotional background created by musical accompaniment to facilitate the training process and make it more efficient and effective, with extra motivations and positive mindsets for every athlete and for appeal of the sport on the whole. This is the reason why practical benefits of specific musical accompaniment styles may be of special interest for the sports community.

Objective of the study was to rate benefits of differently styled musical accompaniments for the training process efficiency in academic kettlebell lifting sport.

Methods and structure of the study. We sampled for the study the 18-22-year-old kettlebell lifters from Tyumen Industrial University qualified Class II to CMS and tested them for one year in the training process with and without musical accompaniment. The groups were trained for 3 hours 3 times a week, with a special 20-minute warm-up prior to each training session making an emphasis on active movements and flexibility practices. The core trainings were dominated by athletics including bench press and one/ two-hand snatch and jerk with 12 kg, 24 kg and 32 kg (males) kettlebells. The sample was also trained twice a week in a gym on special training machines with dumbbells and weight plates.

For 2 months the group had been trained without musical accompaniment followed by 3 styles of musical accompaniment including rock, pop and classical music. Each musical accompaniment style had been tested for 2 months, with the musical accompaniment tempo varied within the range of 80-130 accents (beats) per minute (Moderato: moderate 80 accents per minute; Allegretto: more active 100 accents per minute; and Allegro: highly active 130 accents per minute). The test data were processed by the variation statistics analysis [1] to obtain the following test rates: variation index in percent; result reliability rate Sх; average accuracy rate Сs; and arithmetic mean as the key test rate, with the data presented in M±mx format. Variation range of every index was rated by variation index [2].

Results and discussion. We used the rock musical accompaniment pieces including alternative rock, alternative metal and hard rock ones dominated by rebellious colors. Given hereunder is the musical-accompaniment-free physical fitness test data (Table 1); rock musical accompaniment backed physical fitness test data (Table 2), and the pop musical accompaniment (Table 3) and classical musical accompaniment backed physical fitness test data (Table 4).

Table 1. Musical-accompaniment-free physical fitness test data

Table 2. Rock musical accompaniment backed physical fitness test data

Pop musical accompaniment was composed of the most popular pop music, i.e. the ‘light’ and commonly accessible for apprehension.

Table 3. Pop musical accompaniment backed physical fitness test data

Classical musical accompaniment was composed of J. Haydn, W. Mozart and L. Beethoven masterpieces strictly organized and conceptually optimistic, with constant rhythmic beats, predominantly dance styles, melodic and simple.

Table 4. Classical musical accompaniment backed physical fitness test data

Having compared the style-specific variation indices, we found the musical-accompaniment-free and pop musical accompaniment backed physical performances wider different than in cases of rock and classical musical accompaniment backed ones. Note that the variation range was still relatively narrow limited by variation index ˂10%: see Table 5.

Table 5. Musical accompaniment -free and musical-accompaniment-backed physical performance differences

The above findings can be explained by the encouragement effects of the musical accompaniment, with the athletes’ performance prolonged, activated and allowing higher intensity practices. The sport groups also noted that the musical accompaniment helps cope with the physically difficult practices. Human body and mind appears adopting to the rhythmic accompaniment in terms of pace and intensity since the background rhythm releases the athlete of volitional pace control efforts and automates movements harmonized with the musical rhythm. As soon as the muscles are free from volitional control, they effectively relax, particularly the inactive ones, and ease movements.

Conclusion. The study found that musical accompaniments of different styles facilitate the training process in somewhat different manners. The musical accompaniment backed trainings were tested to improve physical fitness of the sample by 12% on average. Rock music was tested to spur up the performance higher than the other styles – by 22.1% on average versus 7.2% and 2.1% in the pop and classical musical accompaniment tests, respectively. This finding gives us the grounds to recommend rock musical accompaniment being applied for the sports training efficiency and performance improvement purposes.

References

1. Katmakov P.S., Gavrilenko V.P., Bushov A.V. Biometrics. Study guide for universities. 2nd ed., rev., sup.. Мoscow: Yurayt publ., 2019. 177 p. [Electronic resource] EBS Yurayt [site]. Available at: https://urait.ru/bcode/429141.
2. Plokhinsky N.A. [ed.] Methods of modern biometrics. Collected papers. Moscow Society of Naturalists. Мoscow: MSU publ., 1978. 207 p.
3. Elvers P., Steffens J. The Sound of Success: Investigating Cognitive and Behavioral Effects of Motivational Music in Sports, Frontiers in Psychology. 2017; 8.
4. Hallett R., Lamont A. Music Use in Exercise: A Questionnaire Study. Media Psychology. 2017; 20 (4): 658-84.
5. Inside sport psychology. Book· January 2010 with 6,130 Reads.

Corresponding author: mashcashcag@mail.ru

Abstract

Objective of the study was to rate benefits of differently styled musical accompaniments for the training process efficiency in academic kettlebell lifting sport.

Methods and structure of the study. The test data were processed by the variation statistics analysis [1] to obtain the following test rates: variation index in percent; result reliability rate Sх; average accuracy rate Сs; and arithmetic mean as the key test rate, with data presented in M±mx format. Variation range of every index was rated by variation index.

Results and conclusion. The study found that music accompaniments of different styles facilitate the training process in somewhat different manners. The musical accompaniment backed trainings were tested to improve physical fitness of the sample by 12% on average. Rock music (rock musical accompaniment) was tested to spur up the performance higher than the other styles – by 22.1% on average versus 7.2% and 2.1% in the pop and classical musical accompaniment tests, respectively. This finding gives the grounds to recommend rock musical accompaniment being applied for the sports training efficiency and performance improvement purposes.