Amy D. Foundation rider Whitney Post gives us what’s on her playlist when she cranking out those hard indoor miles. We hope you enjoy the playlist she’s curated to keep your heart and your legs moving!!
I majored in music in college which usually always leads people to think I have this intensely curated music collection. This couldn’t be further from the truth. I majored in music, but was always terrible with the “who wrote that piece” part. Music for me is a tool to manipulate my emotions and behavior, so all that matters to me is how it makes me FEEL. As soon as Pandora launched and started recommending songs for different “channels” you create on their platform using algorithms – I was hooked. I have Pandora channels with 1000’s of hours of playtime. It is a great way to discover new music and to curate lists with very little effort.
I am very connected to the beat, tension, and direction of a song and I find this is hugely useful for workouts, the most obvious of these being the beat. The Spotify playlist I’m sharing is young and will continue to get curated, but at the moment contains a lot of songs in the 170-190 BPM range which fits perfectly with my natural cadence on the bike (85-95 rpm). There are also a fair number of songs in the 110-120 range as well because my coach has been programming an insane amount of big gear work at 55-60 RPM this year. Lastly there are some great really intense ones like “200bpm” which is exactly what it sounds like and I literally restart it for every single interval when my coach programs 30/90 or 40/20 Isokinetic mode Max sprints at 100-105 rpm.
The way I see it, at any given moment you have a total of $10 worth of attention. How you spend this $10 determines perceived effort and maximal output. If the song that is on has a BPM that conflicts with my prescribed cadence, it costs me $1-$2 extra of that precious attention in order to stay on my prescribed cadence, which makes the overall perceived effort for the interval higher and when it comes to max efforts usually lowers my output. I would rather have no music than conflicting music. It’s the same as if someone tries to engage you in conversation while you’re deep in the hurt locker during an interval. That $10 is a finite resource, so you have to spend it wisely! With the 200BPM song, It starts with a buildup and then goes ALL OUT. I know it so well, that when I hit restart at the start of my rest interval I don’t even have to watch the clock, it triggers me to keep pedaling to flush the lactate, take a sip of water, then a dab of hammer gel under my tongue, and then focus to control my breathing and get my HR down before it goes nuts and I start the next sprint. I find that if I can use the music to remove my need to concentrate on the cadence, and reduce the attention cost of as many things as possible, the more attention is left over for the actual effort of putting force into the pedals, which ultimately increases my output and the effectiveness of the interval.