Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. ISSN 0077-8923
ANNALS OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Special Issue: Annals Reports
Original Article
Instructed versus spontaneous entrainment of
running cadence to music tempo
Edith Van Dyck,
Jeska Buhmann,
and Valerio Lorenzoni
IPEM, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Address for correspondence: Edith Van Dyck, IPEM, Ghent University, De Krook, ﬂoor +4, Miriam Makebaplein 1, 9000 Ghent,
Belgium. edith.vandyck@ugent.be
Matching exercise behavior to musical beats has been shown to favorably affect repetitive endurance tasks. In this
study, our aim was to explore the role of spontaneous versus instructed entrainment, focusing on self-paced exercise
of healthy, recreational runners. For three 4-min running tasks, 33 recreational participants were either running
in silence or with music; when running with music, either no instructions were given to entrain to the music, or
participants were instructed to match their running cadence with the tempo of the music. The results indicated
that less entrainment occurred when no instruction to match the exercise with the musical tempo was provided.
In addition, similar to the condition without music, lower speeds and shorter step lengths were observed when
runners were instructed to match their running behavior to the musical tempo when compared with the condition
without such instruction. Our findings demonstrate the impact of instruction on running performance and stress
the importance of intention to entrain running behavior to musical beats.
Keywords: music; running; movement; entrainment; auditory–motor coupling
Introduction
Music and exercise—the combination of the two is
often regarded as a great match, a viewpoint that
has important implications for the sports and exer-
cise domain. It is, for instance, hard to imagine a
gym deprived of loud, energetic music motivated
by the conviction that music boosts performance.
In sports and exercise research, this hypothesis has
been tested repeatedly, demonstrating that music is
indeed capable of increasing exercise intensity and
endurance,1–5 stimulating rhythmic movement,4
distracting from fatigue and discomfort,6,7 prompt-
ing and altering mood states,7 spurring motivation,8
inducing arousal,9 relieving stress,6 and evoking a
sense of power and producing power-related cog-
nition and behavior.10 Music to which performance
can be synchronized in particular was shown to
extend endurance and increase exercise intensity.11
The process underlying this particular type of
auditory–motor coupling is commonly referred to
as entrainment. It entails a match of musical tempi
with exercising tempi, locked in a particular period
relationship (e.g., running tempo matching musi-
cal tempo) and resulting in regular corporeal pat-
terns. Performance boosting effects of entrained
music are rooted in the ability of motor-to-music
entrainment to reduce the metabolic cost of exer-
cise by enhancing neuromuscular or metabolic
efficiency.12,13 Owing to the absence of timely
adjustments within the kinetic pattern and an
increase in the level of relaxation resulting from the
precise expectancy of the forthcoming movement,
regular corporeal patterns demand less energy to
imitate.14 Hence, by employing music that can be
corporeally emulated, a point of reference is estab-
lished that is able to attract and thus entrain recur-
ring motor patterns.13,15
Entrainment and its related benefits were shown
to be particularly useful for repetitive endurance
tasks, such as walking, running, rowing, and
doi: 10.1111/nyas.14528
91
Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1489 (2021) 91–102 © 2020 The Authors. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of New York Academy of Sciences
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in
any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Instructed and spontaneous music-entrained running
Van Dyck et al.
cycling.11,12,16–18 In addition, improvements in
endurance performance proved to be most appar-
ent at low-to-moderate exercise intensities.6,19 This
is largely explained by Rejeski’s parallel processing
hypothesis, which states that as exercise intensity
increases, physiological cues (e.g., heart and respira-
tion rates) predominate.20 Thus, when the exercise
becomes too strenuous, perception of neural exer-
tion signals coming from the muscles, joints, and
cardiopulmonary systems increases, resulting in an
attention shift toward the painful and/or fatiguing
effects of the exercise.20–24
Most previous research on the effects of music-
to-motor coupling on exercise and sports focused
on instructed (or imposed, intended) entrainment
(e.g., see Refs. 9, 11, 16, 25, and 26). In this case,
the exerciser is explicitly instructed to match his/her
exercise behavior to a musical beat or pulse. How-
ever, entrainment can also occur spontaneously, or
when the exerciser is not instructed to match his/her
behavior to the music. Although less research has
been performed regarding spontaneous (or unin-
structed/unintended) entrainment, some have indi-
cated that humans indeed possess a natural pre-
disposition to respond to rhythmical qualities of
music.27–29 Yet, spontaneous entrainment of one
tempo with another is only believed to occur when
the strength of the coupling is able to overcome pos-
sible contrasts in the natural movement period or
tempo. The difference between the period of the
music and that of the exercise, thus, should not
exceed a specific range, referred to as the entrain-
ment basin.28,30–32
It remains rather unclear whether these different
approaches could result in divergent effects on
performance output, as research combining both
instructed and spontaneous entrainment is sparse.
However, some research on walking behavior did
compare both approaches, stressing the limitations
of spontaneous entrainment.29,33 Moreover, when
the required intensity to match the walking behav-
ior to the beats proved too large, it was shown that
intentional entrainment with an active cognitive
control mechanism was required in order to obtain
movement-to-music coupling.29
In our study, the aim was to further explore
possible differences between instructed and spon-
taneous entrainment by focusing on a repetitive
endurance exercise, namely running. We used a
within-subjects design to investigate possible con-
trasts in the effects of both approaches (comple-
mented with a baseline condition without music,
serving as a point of reference) on a selection of
key outcome measures. As music was indicated to
be of greater benefit to untrained or recreationally-
active individuals than to those who are highly
trained,34,35 and since this group is heavily repre-
sented in current society, recreational runners were
targeted here. Intrinsically, the goal of our study was
to provide outcomes that might prove to be of inter-
est to a large population of exercisers and valuable
to future research on music and exercise.
Method
Participants
To establish sample size, power analysis for a
repeated-measures design was conducted using
G∗Power 3.1.9.2.36 On the basis of a small effect
size, with alpha set at 0.05 and power at 0.90, it
was estimated that about 32 participants would be
required. Thirty-three healthy adult participants (18
females/15 males) took part in the study. The test
group consisted of recreational runners with an
average age of 34.21 years (SD = 8.17), a mean
body mass of 62.49 kg (SD = 12.95), and an aver-
age height of 1.70 m (SD = 0.11), who reported
being fit enough to run comfortably for at least
30 min without feeling exhausted. Only a minority
(36.36%) had received musical training. On aver-
age, musically trained participants had 9.50 years
(SD = 12.03) of musical experience and were edu-
cated in music schools (37.50%) or conservato-
ries (6.25%), through private lessons (37.50%), self-
education (18.75%), or a combination of the above.
All participants reported running regularly, with
varying degrees of frequency (66.67% reported run-
ning multiple times a week; 30.30% about once a
week; and 3.03% about once a month). Of all par-
ticipants, 51.52% reported generally running with-
out music, 39.39% typically trained with music, and
9.09% ran both with and without musical accom-
paniment. Fisher’s exact test showed no signifi-
cant association between participants’ sex and their
musical background (χ2(1) = 0.16, P = 0.73) or
their habit to run to music (χ2(2) = 0.92, P = 0.69).
Ethics statement
The study was approved by the Ethics Commit-
tee of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy at Ghent
University, Belgium, and all procedures followed
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Van Dyck et al.
Instructed and spontaneous music-entrained running
were in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.
In addition, all participants signed a form to
declare that they participated voluntarily; that they
had received sufficient information concerning the
tasks, procedures, and technologies used; that they
had the opportunity to ask questions; and that they
were aware of the fact that running movements were
measured for scientific and educational purposes
only.
Stimulus
For all participants and conditions, the same music
track was played to control for possible effects of
musical characteristics. However, since recreational
running tempi generally vary between 130 and 200
steps per minute (SPM), the track was required to
efficiently deal with substantial tempo variations.
Yet, to minimize the degree of tempo-stretching,
a stimulus with an original tempo of about 165
beats per minute (BPM) was selected. Furthermore,
to facilitate the activating character, clearly audible
beats were mandatory as a stable tempo through-
out the entire track.37 Finally, to further facilitate
the imperceptibility of the tempo-stretching, a track
was selected with low to no appearances in national
and international music charts, that is, one that was
unfamiliar to (most of) the participants. Familiarity
with the stimulus was further checked in a postques-
tionnaire, with 87.88% stating to not know the track
at all, 6.06% reporting to have possibly recognized
the track, 0% stating to know the track, and 6.06%
to being indecisive. Taking the above-described cri-
teria into account, the song International Dateline
by Ladytron (2005), with an original tempo of 168
BPM, was selected. As the duration of the track
did not cover the complete length of a condition
(i.e., 4 min), the chorus part in the middle of the
song was copied and repeated at the end of the
track (using Audacity software, see http://audacity.
sourceforge.net) when it had to undergo substantial
tempo increases (up to 200 BPM). Beats were auto-
matically detected using BeatRoot38 and manually
checked afterward.
Apparatus
Participants were equipped with two iPods (4th
generation); one attached to each ankle. Using the
Sensor Monitor Pro application on the iPods, data
from the iPod accelerometers and gyroscopes were
streamed wirelessly at 100 Hz to a 7′′ tablet (Pana-
sonic Roughpad FZ-M1) running Windows 8.1.
The tablet was strapped to a backpack, together with
a sonar (MaxBotix LV-MaxSonar-EZ: MB1010)
pointing to the right of the runner and con-
nected to the tablet through a Teensy 3.1 micro-
controller. Twenty-nine 1.9-m vertical marker rods
were placed on the right side of the running track
(289 m) with a spacing of 9.97 meters. The sonar and
the rods were used to calculate the runners’ speed in
a postprocessing phase.
The wireless connection between the tablet and
iPods was provided through a Wi-Fi router (TP-
Link M5360), firmly strapped to the backpack,
ensuring reliable communication between the iPods
and the tablet. On the tablet, Max/MSP from
Cycling74’ was running together with a patch
specifically designed to read out the sensor data,
implement the different conditions, and store the
data. The audio output was provided through
Sennheiser HD 215 headphones. Music tempo was
manipulated using the MAX/MSP elastic∼ object
by Simon Adcock, which allows for tempo alter-
ations of ±/–100% of the original music tempo
without pitch modifications.
Procedure
The experiments took place at an indoor track-
and-field site (Flanders Sports Arena, Ghent, Bel-
gium). Participants were equipped with the iPods,
headphones, and a backpack containing the tablet,
sonar, and Wi-Fi router. They were asked to run
four times for 4 minutes. No information was dis-
tributed concerning the real purpose of the exper-
iment and all participants ran solo. After each
4-min running session, a break of at least 5 min
was introduced to enable them to recover suffi-
ciently. During the break, the participant was asked
to take sufficient rest. After he/she expressed feel-
ing approximately as fit as at the start of the exper-
iment, the participant initiated the following run-
ning session. Between sessions, participants were
asked to fill out the Borg Rating of Perceived Exer-
tion (RPE) Scale39,40 and indicate how heavy the
effort had been during the exercise, ranging from 6
(“no exertion at all”) to 20 (“maximal exertion”). In
addition, they rated the level of physical enjoyment
of the previously performed exercise on the 8-item
version of the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale
(PACES),41,42 a single-factor 7-point Likert scale to
assess the level of enjoyment during physical activ-
ity in adults across exercise modalities.
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Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1489 (2021) 91–102 © 2020 The Authors. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
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Van Dyck et al.
In the training session, participants were asked
to run at their self-paced cadence without musical
accompaniment. This session was included to warm
up and get acquainted with the running track and
was not taken into account in the analysis. In the
first running session (no music condition), no music
was played and participants were asked to run at
their self-paced cadence. Next, a familiarization task
took place where the participants first listened to
the music track without moving to it. In the sec-
ond session (uninstructed condition), participants
exercised at their self-paced cadence again, this time
accompanied by music with a tempo matching their
cadence assessed during the last 120 steps taken in
the previous condition.a During the third session
(instructed condition), the same stimulus was pre-
sented, yet participants were instructed to “match
their running cadence with the tempo of the music.”
As exercise behavior might be influenced by a fore-
seen completion of the task (e.g., speeding up near
the end of the experiment), a fourth and final con-
dition was added, in which participants were asked
to run at their self-pace cadence once more with
musical accompaniment. This condition was merely
implemented to control for confounding effects of
anticipated task completion and was not taken into
account in the analysis.
At the end of the experiment, participants
filled out a questionnaire on personal background,
music education, and sports training. In addi-
tion, participants’ perception of their personal level
of movement-to-music matching behavior in the
instructed condition was assessed, as well as to what
extent they generally tend to match their cadence to
musical tempi outside the experimental setting.
Data analysis
To test the effect of the specific condition on run-
ning behavior, the following features were calcu-
lated: cadence, speed, step length, tempo entrain-
ment, mean relative phase angle (rPA), and resul-
tant vector length (RVL). Before the calculation of
all features, the initial 60 s of each run was discarded
to avoid a start-up effect. The final 30 s of each run
was ignored as well, to eliminate altered running
aThe final 40 steps were excluded in order to disregard
possible alterations in cadence due to the anticipation of
the end of the condition.
behavior due to the anticipated ending (e.g., slow-
ing down or speeding up). Movement features were
calculated as follows.
Cadence (SPM).
Running cadence was calculated
in real time using the acceleration data acquired by
the iPods. A change in the movement direction of
the leg, detected by the gyroscope, was identified
as a step. The tempo intervals of eight consecutive
steps of the same leg were used to calculate cadence
(SPM) in a moving average manner.
Step length (m).
Step length was calculated in real
time as the distance measured from the heel print of
one foot to the heel print of the other foot.
Speed (km/h).
The distance measurements pro-
vided by the sonar were used in a postprocessing
phase to evaluate running speed. When the runner
passed along the rods, placed on the right side of the
track, a distance minimum was detected. Through
computation of the time between the minima, that
is, between the rods, average speed was determined.
The analog signal was sampled at 250 Hz and digi-
tized using the Teensy microcontroller.
Tempo entrainment (%).
Another measure con-
sisted of the percentage of tempo-entrained steps
during the conditions with music. A step taken in a
tempo sufficiently close to the music tempo (max-
imum of 1% difference between SPM and BPM)
at that specific moment is regarded as a tempo-
entrained step. The tempo entrainment score is the
percentage of tempo-entrained steps out of the total
number of steps.
Mean rPA (degrees).
The mean rPA is a measure
of the timing of the footfall relative to the closest
beat and can be expressed as either a positive (foot-
fall after the beat) or a negative (footfall before the
beat) angle in degrees. The rPA of 0° refers to a foot-
fall that is exactly timed on the beat, and an angle
of 180° refers to a footfall that is timed precisely in
between two beats. Such an rPA can be calculated
for each step with the following equation (St refers
to the time of a step, B1 refers to the time of the beat
before the step, and B2 refers to the time of the beat
after the step)
φ = 360∗ St − B1
B2 − B1,
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published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of New York Academy of Sciences
Van Dyck et al.
Instructed and spontaneous music-entrained running
after which the circular mean of all rPAs can be
calculated.43 The mean of all rPAs is only of inter-
est if there is a sufficient amount of consistency in
entrainment, which is expressed by the RVL (see
below). Therefore, only mean rPA values that cor-
respond to RVL values of ≥0.75 are considered in
the analysis.
RVL (value from 0 to 1).
The RVL expresses the
coherence or stability of the rPA over time.44 If the
distribution of the rPA over time is narrow (when all
phase angles are clustered around the mean), it leads
to a high RVL (maximum value 1), which indicates
highly consistent entrainment. In the case of a broad
or multimodal rPA over time, RVL is low (minimum
value toward 0), indicating no auditory–motor cou-
pling or entrainment with the music. Addition-
ally, participants were divided into entrainers and
nonentrainers using a cutoff of ≥0.75, based on pre-
vious research (e.g., see Refs. 29 and 37).
For all movement features, a 3 × 2 mixed-design
ANOVA with condition as within-subjects factor
(no music, uninstructed, and instructed) and sex
as a between-subject factor was performed. The no
music condition could not be taken into account
for features depending on musical parameters (e.g.,
tempo entrainment, rPA, and RVL). An indepen-
dent samples t-test was performed to check for
the effects of musical training on tempo entrain-
ment and RVL, while one-way ANOVA was exe-
cuted to check for differences between participants
reporting to habitually run with, without, or both
with and without music. Friedman’s ANOVA was
employed to check for differences in PACES and
BORG RPE-scale ratings between conditions and
one-way ANOVA was used to examine the poten-
tial effects of perceived alignment on tempo entrain-
ment.
Results
Cadence
A significant main effect of condition was revealed,
F(2,62) = 18.12, P < 0.001. Contrasts showed
that running cadence was significantly lower in
the no music condition (M = 168.78; SE = 1.53)
compared with the other conditions: uninstructed
(M = 170.89; SE = 1.54), F(1,31) = 42.61, P < 0.001,
η2 = 0.58, and instructed (M = 170.30; SE = 1.45),
F(1,31) = 13.07, P = 0.001, η2 = 0.30. No significant
difference was found between the instructed and
uninstructed conditions, F(1,31) = 3.31, P = 0.08,
η2 = 0.10.
A significant main effect of sex was obtained
as well, revealing higher cadence rates for females
(M = 173.34; SE = 1.86) than males (M = 165.97;
SE = 2.03), F(1,31) = 7.18, P = 0.009, η2 = 0.18.
There was no significant effect of the condition ×
sex interaction, F(2,62) = 0.31, P = 0.73 (Fig. 1A).
Step length
We obtained a significant main effect of condi-
tion, F(2,62) = 13.43, P < 0.001, demonstrating
larger step lengths in the uninstructed condition
(M = 1.12; SE = 0.04) compared with the no music
(M = 1.09; SE = 0.03), F(1,31) = 18.41, P <
0.001, η2 = 0.37, and the instructed one (M = 1.08;
SE = 0.03), F(1,31) = 21.25, P < 0.001, η2 = 0.41.
No significant difference was obtained between the
no music and instructed conditions, F(1,31) = 3.01,
P = 0.09, η2 = 0.09.
There was a significant main effect of sex, reveal-
ing larger step lengths for males (M = 1.21;
SE = 0.04) compared with their female counterparts
(M = 1.00; SE = 0.04), F(1,31) = 14.39, P = 0.001,
η2 = 0.31.
In addition, a significant effect of the condition ×
sex interaction was obtained, indicating that males
make larger differences in step length between the
uninstructed and instructed condition compared
with their female counterparts, F(2,62) = 4.88,
P = 0.01 (Fig. 1B).
Speed
There was a significant main effect of condition,
F(2,62) = 15.21, P < 0.001, demonstrating faster
running behavior in the uninstructed condition
(M = 11.44; SE = 0.35) compared with the no
music (M = 11.02; SE = 0.32), F(1,31) = 40.40,
P < 0.001, η2 = 0.56, and the instructed (M = 10.96;
SE = 0.29), F(1,31) = 20.86, P < 0.001, η2 = 0.41,
conditions. No significant difference was found
between the no music and instructed conditions,
F(1,31) = 0.43, P = 0.52, η2 = 0.01.
There was a significant main effect of sex, reveal-
ing higher speed levels for males (M = 12.07;
SE = 0.42) compared with their female counterparts
(M = 10.37; SE = 0.38), F(1,31) = 8.87, P = 0.006,
η2 = 0.22.
A significant effect of the condition × sex inter-
action was obtained as well, showing that larger
speed differences between the uninstructed and
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Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1489 (2021) 91–102 © 2020 The Authors. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of New York Academy of Sciences
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Van Dyck et al.
Figure 1. Results on cadence (A), step length (B), and speed (C) data of male and female runners, for the no music, uninstructed,
and instructed conditions. Data presented are the mean ± SE.
instructed conditions were made by males than by
females, F(2,62) = 4.36, P = 0.02 (Fig. 1C).
Tempo entrainment
Tempo entrainment proved to be significantly
higher in the instructed (M = 0.62; SD = 0.28) com-
pared with the uninstructed condition (M = 0.51;
SD = 0.30), F(1,31) = 7.68, P = 0.009, η2 = 0.20.
There was no significant main effect of sex,
F(1,31) = 1.36, P = 0.25, η2 = 0.04, nor was there a
significant effect of the condition × sex interaction,
F(1,31) = 0.07, P = 0.79, η2 = 0.003 (Fig. 2A).
Mean rPA (rPA)
A significant difference was found for mean rPA,
indicating footfalls more closely match musical
beats in the instructed condition (M = −33.75;
SD = 36.63) compared with the uninstructed one
(M = −47.69; SD = 42.16), F(1,7) = 7.32, P = 0.03,
η2 = 0.52.
No significant main effect of sex, F(1,31) = 0.14,
P = 0.72, η2 = 0.02, or of the condition × sex inter-
action, F(1,31) = 0.03, P = 0.87, η2 = 0.004, was
obtained. (Fig. 2B).
RVL
The RVL was shown to be significantly higher in the
instructed (M = 0.69; SD = 0.30) compared with
the uninstructed condition (M = 0.49; SD = 0.34),
F(1,31) = 17.18, P < 0.001, η2 = 0.13.
No significant main effect of sex, F(1,31) = 1.55,
P = 0.22, η2 = 0.05, or of the condition × sex inter-
action, F(1,31) = 0.63, P = 0.44, η2 = 0.0004, was
found (Fig. 2C).
Musical experience
Significantly higher levels of tempo entrainment
and RVL were obtained for musically trained par-
ticipants (tempo entrainment: M = 0.68, SD = 0.16;
and RVL: M = 0.73, SD = 0.20), compared with
their untrained counterparts (tempo entrainment:
M = 0.49, SD = 0.29, t(31) = −2.12, P = 0.04,
η2 = 0.13; and RVL: M = 0.51, SD = 0.30,
t(31) = −2.33, P = 0.03, η2 = 0.15).
No significant effects for either of these parame-
ters (tempo entrainment, F(2,30) = 0.17, P = 0.85;
and RVL, F(2,30) = 0.002, P = 0.99) were found
between participants who reported habitually run-
ning with or without music, or those who indicated
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Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1489 (2021) 91–102 © 2020 The Authors. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of New York Academy of Sciences
Van Dyck et al.
Instructed and spontaneous music-entrained running
Figure 2. Results on tempo entrainment (A), mean relative phase angle (B), and resultant vector length (C) data of male and
female runners, for both the uninstructed and instructed conditions. Data presented are the mean ± SE.
both running with and without musical accompani-
ment.
PACES
A significant main effect of the ratings was obtained,
χ2(2) = 15.53, P < 0.001, and Wilcoxon tests were
used to follow up on this finding. After Bonfer-
roni correction, it appeared that ratings for the
no music condition (Mdn = 4.63) were signifi-
cantly lower compared with the other two con-
ditions: uninstructed, (Mdn = 5.00), z = −3.77,
P < 0.001, η2 = 0.23; and instructed, (Mdn = 5.00),
z = −2.61, P = 0.009, η2 = 0.10. No significant
differences were found between the uninstructed
and instructed conditions, z = −0.97, P = 0.33,
η2 = 0.01.
Borg RPE
No significant change in Borg RPE-scale ratings
over the conditions was obtained, χ2(2) = 0.29,
P = 0.87.
Perception of alignment
Of all participants, none of them answered nega-
tively when asked if they believed they had aligned
their running movements with the music in the
instructed condition; 15.15% replied that they did
not know whether they did so or not; 21.21%
answered that, at times, they indeed aligned with
the music; and 63.64% reported to have aligned
their running cadence with the music tempo most
of the time. We checked for differences in auditory–
motor coupling between these three groups of par-
ticipants. However, no significant effect of per-
ceived alignment was found for tempo entrainment,
F(2,30) = 1.10, P = 0.35, rPA, F(2,16) = 0.24,
P = 0.79, or RVL, F(2,30) = 1.12, P = 0.34.
When asked about their entrainment behavior in
daily life, 39.39% of all participants did not know
whether they entrain their running behavior to the
perceived music or generally do not run to music;
3.03% of them reported not entraining to music in
daily life; 45.45% disclosed to occasionally entrain-
ing with the music; and 12.12% pointed out gener-
ally entraining to music while running.
Discussion
In this study, we aimed to investigate the dif-
ference between instructed and uninstructed (or
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Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1489 (2021) 91–102 © 2020 The Authors. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
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spontaneous) entrainment of running to music.
Our findings showed that instruction resulted in
a significant increase in the level of movement-to-
music entrainment when compared with the same
running task without instruction. When the run-
ners were not instructed to align their movements
with the musical beats, only 33.33% of the partici-
pants spontaneously entrained to the stimulus. Yet,
when instructions to “match running cadence with
musical tempo” were given, 57.58% of the runners
entrained with the beats. Such results are rather
surprising, since in walking research usually larger
population ratios display spontaneous entrainment
to musical stimuli in tempi close to preferred exer-
cising paces (e.g., 40%, see Ref. 33; about 50%, see
Ref. 37; and about 60%, see Ref. 29). Moreover, stud-
ies on walking also revealed higher levels of entrain-
ment with instruction (e.g., 74%, see Ref. 33; and
up to 93%, see Ref. 29). However, running is a more
strenuous effort and involves different biomechan-
ics; although it is a natural extension of walking,
running involves increased velocities, joint range of
motion, forces, muscle activity, joint moments, and
joint powers as compared with walking. Thus, run-
ning stresses the mechanics of the body to a greater
extent, as such also increasing the risk of related
injury.45
Even though, on average, entrainment was lower
compared with previous walking research, a similar
difference between spontaneous and instructed
entrainment was demonstrated for runners, with
higher levels of tempo entrainment as well as RVL
(an alternative measure of entrainment) when
instructed to match exercise behavior to musical
beats. In addition, despite the fact that footfall
instances generally preceded musical beats, rPAs
decreased with instruction, indicating a closer
match to beat occurrences. However, even when
instructions to match running behavior to music
were given, entrainment frequency remained rather
low, a finding similar to previous work showing
low movement-to-music coupling frequencies after
participants were instructed to adapt movements
of the entire body to the music.46 These results
support the hypothesis that matching movements
to musical beats may not be a simple, low-level
task; entrainment in itself may be cognitively
demanding,46
most
particularly
for
individu-
als who have difficulty perceiving the beat in
music.33,47–49
Besides entrainment, also cadence, step length,
and speed—three key performance measures of
running—were
scrutinized.
All
three
features
proved to increase in the uninstructed condition
when compared with the condition without musical
accompaniment. This is in line with the idea that
music is capable of increasing exercise intensity and
endurance.1–5 Although the precise mechanisms
through which music can boost performance still
require further investigation, this effect might
be (partly) explained by the propensity of music
to heighten arousal.34,50,51 In the instructed con-
dition, a similar increase in cadence occurred.
However, compared with the silent condition,
step length and speed did not significantly change
when instructed to run to the beat. These results
are consistent with previous results on walking
behavior, demonstrating that instructing partic-
ipants to move to the beat elicited slower and
shorter strides than when instruction was absent.33
They are also in accordance with earlier findings
indicating that, when compared with stride-based
pacing, step-based pacing leads to more stable
auditory–motor coordination in both walking and
running.52 Consequently, although a number of
studies demonstrated that auditory–motor cou-
pling improved performance in motor tasks,11,12,18
our findings suggest that entrainment as such does
not necessarily speed up recreational runners or
lengthen their steps, as this seems to depend on
the presence/absence of instruction. The fact that
instructed entrainment did not lead to an increase
in speed and step length, whereas spontaneous
entrainment did, might be related to the idea that
instruction results in more goal-directed behavior,
as such directing the focus to the achievement
of entrainment and suppressing possible arousal
effects caused by the auditory accompaniment. The
combination of our results on entrainment as well as
cadence, step length, and speed indeed corresponds
with cognitive motor learning models, suggesting
that explicit instruction in motor control contexts
may lead to more intentional behavior and promote
greater deliberate control of movement compared
with baseline and, in turn, disrupt movement in
line with the conscious processing hypothesis.33,53
This hypothesis is applied to healthy populations,
such as the recreational runners studied here. How-
ever, it might not hold for specific gait-disordered
populations, since previous clinical work indicated
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Van Dyck et al.
Instructed and spontaneous music-entrained running
that rhythmic auditory cues can, for instance,
help Parkinson’s disease patients to take faster and
longer (as well as less variable) strides, even when
instructed to entrain.54
Although
rPAs
decreased
with
instruction
(implying a closer match of footsteps and beat
instances), negative angles were exhibited both
with and without instruction to entrain to the
music. As a negative rPA implies footfalls to occur
before the beat, a prediction error minimization
process occurred; runners presumably relied on
anticipatory mechanisms, which allowed them to
predict the beats and coordinate their own antici-
pated actions with these predictions.55 This idea is
supported by previous research revealing positive
correlations between prediction/tracking ratios
and the acuity of auditory imagery for timing.56 It
has been suggested that the formation of auditory
images largely relies on working memory.57–59
Moreover, activation of the corresponding brain
areas was observed during auditory imagery.60
Although music is believed to distract from feel-
ings of fatigue and discomfort,6,7 self-rated per-
ceived physical fatigue did not change over condi-
tions. This is possibly the result of the short duration
of the running tasks, in combination with the low-
to-moderate intensity of the exercise, as such not
prompting significant feelings of fatigue or exhaus-
tion. Yet, levels of physical enjoyment did improve
in the presence of a musical stimulus, which is in
accordance with the general idea that music can
alter mood states and stimulate motivation.7,8 As
corporeal coupling to musical stimuli can support
the feeling of agency,61 further igniting motivational
components,29 we did expect to obtain increased
levels of physical enjoyment in the instructed con-
dition compared with the uninstructed one. Yet, no
such effects were found, suggesting that instruction
as such did not influence runners’ enjoyment of the
exercise.
Since some previous research provided (direct or
indirect) proof to indicate that women are more
responsive to musical stimuli than men,8,28,62,63 run-
ners’ sex was taken into account in the analysis.
In contrast with such evidence, our results did not
reveal differences between men and women regard-
ing entrainment behavior. However, larger differ-
ences in speed and step length between the unin-
structed and instructed conditions were exhibited
for male runners, possibly indicating that they were
more responsive to the instruction. Yet, this is a
matter of some speculation and other factors might
have been at play as well. On average, women were,
for instance, shown to exercise more often to music
than men, as well as to prefer other music styles,64
and experience different affects and levels of moti-
vation while doing so.8,63
An effect of musical training was retrieved,
demonstrating higher levels of tempo entrainment
and increased RVLs for musically trained runners
compared with their untrained counterparts. As
such, musical experience might be suggested to
facilitate auditory–motor coupling, which is in con-
sonance with previous finger-tapping research indi-
cating greater synchronization accuracy for musi-
cians than nonmusicians; musicians synchronized
more flexibly while tapping, while nonmusicians
showed greater temporal rigidity.65 The observed
decreased ability of nonmusically trained individ-
uals to entrain to musical beats might result from
weaker auditory–motor integration.66,49 Findings in
cognitive psychology also suggested that success-
ful adaptation to stimuli is mediated by the level
of regularity in the specific environment (i.e., mak-
ing it more predictable) and the opportunity to have
obtained sufficient practice in such a setting.67 This
would thus imply that individuals who obtained
more musical practice would adapt more efficiently
to a regular (thus predictable) beat, which was
indeed confirmed by our results.
In our current study, the type of entrainment
(or synchronization) refers to the period match-
ing of two (or more) dynamical systems. Although
most research on the alignment of running and
walking behavior and musical beats focused on
period matching, we could also have opted to target
phase-locking (footfall instances occurring in phase
with the musical beats). However, as research indi-
cated that footfall instances of running and walking
behavior usually occur before or after the beat of the
music (e.g., see Refs. 28, 29, and 37), tempo entrain-
ment (or tempo synchronization) was studied here.
A within-subjects design was selected to control
for a wide range of features previously indicated
to possibly impact auditory–motor coupling, such
as biomechanical characteristics of the individual
subjects,45 preferred running pace,19 age,8 training
level,35,34 and music preference.1,64 As a result, the
order of the conditions could not be counterbal-
anced; however, measures were taken to circumvent
99
Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1489 (2021) 91–102 © 2020 The Authors. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of New York Academy of Sciences
Instructed and spontaneous music-entrained running
Van Dyck et al.
potential associated effects. To prevent confound-
ing effects of exhaustion and fatigue, only runners
who reported to be fit to run comfortably for at
least 30 min without feeling exhausted were invited.
In addition, participants were asked to take suffi-
cient rest (and were required to pause for at least
5 min) between running tasks. Moreover, reported
fatigue was analyzed, demonstrating no differences
between conditions. We also aimed to control for
possible effects of familiarity with the musical stim-
ulus through the inclusion of a familiarization task
before the first running session with musical accom-
paniment.
It should be stressed that this study focused on
recreational runners running at a self-paced tempo.
However, as less-trained exercisers were shown to
depend to a greater extent on the positive feeling
states generated by music, while trained exercisers
generally tend to focus on the tasks and specifics
of their training,34,35 current findings might not
be applicable to more professionally trained run-
ners. Moreover, when studying higher levels of run-
ning intensity, different results might be obtained.
When high workloads are undertaken, the exer-
ciser’s attention could be shifted toward the painful
or fatiguing effects of the exercise,20–24 which might
result in lower levels of entrainment with the musi-
cal beats.
Overall, this study demonstrates the impact of
instruction on running performance. Compared
with a similar running task without instruction,
results showed higher levels of tempo entrainment,
lower speeds, and shorter step lengths of recre-
ational runners when instructed to match exer-
cise with musical tempo. Our results are especially
relevant to recreational runners, as their perfor-
mance might be mediated through intentionality.
We would, however, expect that instruction might
not impact a runner’s entrainment basin. Previ-
ously, recreational runners were shown to sponta-
neously adapt their running cadence up to 2% of
their baseline cadence to tempo changes in music.28
As instruction did not seem to impact running
cadence in the current study, we would expect a
similar entrainment basin both with and without
instructions to adapt to the musical beats. However,
this is a matter of some speculation and would ben-
efit from further study. Finally, our findings might
prove to be interesting to trainers and researchers
as well, since the desired exercise output might, at
least to a certain extent, depend on what exercis-
ers/participants were exactly asked to do. As larger
step lengths can negatively impact loading of the
lower extremity joints,68–70 instruction might also
prove its value in the light of prevention and treat-
ment of common running-related injuries.
Author contributions
E.V.D., J.B., and V.L. participated in research design
and conducted experiments. E.V.D. and J.B. per-
formed data analysis. E.V.D. wrote the first draft. J.B.
and V.L. edited or contributed to the writing of the
manuscript.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
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Instructed versus spontaneous entrainment of running cadence to music tempo.
Van Dyck, Edith,Buhmann, Jeska,Lorenzoni, Valerio