Listening to music while taking part in interval training could help exercisers to work out harder and also increase their enjoyment levels, according to a new study published in the online journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.

Music has long been labelled as having potential benefits for those conducting exercise, with scientists now turning their focus to interval workouts, which some believe to have more benefits than standard workout regimes.

Researchers from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, set about their investigation into music and interval training by recruiting 20 healthy, moderately active adults and assigned them to a particularly strenuous form of interval training.

The training saw the participants take part in four 30-second sprints on a stationary bicycle – inclusive of four minutes of rest in between each of them – with the workout being conducted in conditions that either utilised a personalised playlist of self-selected songs or did not include music.

The results found that the exercisers had higher peak and average power outputs as they listened to their selected music compared to when they had nothing in their ears. It was also found that there was more reported enjoyment when listening to music, with these emotional feelings increasing over time.

The researchers believe that had more participants been included in the trial, data measuring emotive response and the difference in feeling between the exercisers could have been more statistically significant.

After completing the study, all of the participants revealed that they would listen to music again if they were to conduct the same type of training.

One particularly popular type of interval training is CrossFit, with many health enthusiasts wondering whether the model can be translated to the mass market to bring increased fitness benefits across the sector.