Dr Costas Karageorghis of Brunel University has released research that found listening to the right music before and during training boosts performance by up to 18 percent.
Here are the doc's suggestions for high-intensity exercising such as cycling:75 per cent maximum heart rate
Born to be Wild - Steppenwolf
Movin' Too Fast - Artful Dodger & Romina Johnson
I Feel Good - James Brown
Troika - Prokofiev
85 per cent maximum heart rate:
The Heat Is On - Glenn Frey
Reach - S Club 7
Everybody Needs Somebody to Love - Blues Brothers
William Tell Overture - Rossini
Dr Karageorghis isn't advocating urban cyclists plug themselves into iPods while pedalling, his research has more to do with music for warm-ups or gym work.
He said: "It's no secret that music inspires superior performance. Just as the association between a first love and 'your song' can be very strong, so is the relationship between music and sporting performance levels."
Pro cyclists are well-known for their warm-up routines done to music. Lance Armstrong motivates himself with the Foo Fighters when warming up on his turbo trainer.
In Cycling Weekly a fortnight ago, much of the issue concerned what to download to your iPod. The magazine recommended trance classic Cafe del Mar by Energy 52 as the perfect track-side warm-up selection as it is lyric free and has tempo variations in tune with warm-up interval bursts.
Rabbit in your headlights from the Psyence Fiction album by UNKLE was recommended as a good warm-down track.
But the magazine could have also included Olympic Cyclist by Scottish band Ballboy.
It's very mellow and the first verse goes like this:
You did a perfect job last night
You shaved your legs and you washed your bike
And you looked like an Olympic cyclist to me
And in the Athens velodrome
I listened to the crowd roar you home
You were just a blur when you went past me
Spotter: Chris Hill
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