Instructed versus spontaneous entrainment of running cadence to music tempo

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.