Dr. Janet Choi

That is right.

So, I mean, there has been long been this common belief that louder music helps people exercise harder, but we actually don't know whether that's true.

And particularly at the sound levels that commonly used in fitness classes,

Previous studies have measured that music in fitness classes can reach levels exceeding 100 dBA, which is well within the range associated with the potential hearing damage from repeated exposure.

What's the equivalent in outside gyms?

If you're at a construction site, there'll be something more like 100.

It could be as loud as 100 dBA.

Yeah, that is correct, because we wanted to test a simple question.

If fitness classes were a little quieter, would people still feel like they're exercising just as hard?

So we conducted this study at a group fitness studio in Los Angeles and surveyed participants after their workout classes.

Yeah, exactly.

So during the first phase of the study,

This fitness class instructors use their usual music volume, which averaged to be around 9,800 dBA in our study.

And then during a second phase, we asked the instructors to purposely reduce the music volume, which averaged to be around 88 dBA in our study.

yeah yeah so i mean we particularly chose the three decibel uh because it's approximately the smallest change in loudness that most people can notice but if you look at the guideline for occupational noise exposure three decibel difference means that you can have that um it's a half of the sound

energy level.

Exactly.

The sound energy actually goes down by half if you lower it by 3 dB, although perceived loudness is a little different.

The main finding was that the participants in the quieter classes reported the similar levels of exercise intensity compared to those in the louder classes.

So in other words, lowering the music volume by about three decibels did not meaningfully reduce how hard participants felt they were working during the class.