High-groove music boosts running speed and mood in women

An experiment conducted in Japan in which university students ran on treadmills for 10 minutes found that female students tended to run slightly faster and reported being in a much better mood after listening to high groove music while running compared to a situation in which they listened to low groove music. The paper was published in the Frontiers in Sports and Active Living.

Groove in music refers to the sense of rhythmic flow or “feel” that makes listeners want to move, tap, or dance along. It emerges from the interaction of rhythm, timing, and dynamics among instruments, especially the bass and percussion. Groove depends on subtle timing variations—called microtiming—that give music a human, expressive quality rather than a mechanical one.

In many genres, such as funk, jazz, R&B, and pop, groove is created through a balance of predictability and surprise in rhythmic patterns. The bass locks in with the drums to produce a steady, compelling pulse that grounds the groove. Listeners perceive groove not just through hearing but also through bodily entrainment, as motor areas in the brain synchronize with the musical rhythm. Research shows that moderate rhythmic complexity produces the strongest groove response—too simple feels boring, and too complex feels confusing.

Groove also plays a social role, fostering coordination and connection among people through shared movement. Musicians often describe groove as a feeling of “being in the pocket,” when everyone plays tightly together with expressive precision.

The study’s authors, Kazuya Suwabe and Satoshi Kawase, aimed to clarify the effects of groove on self-selected exercise speed and affective response in men and women. They hypothesized that high-groove music—music that strongly incites listeners to move—would increase self-selected running pace and result in a more positive mood compared to low-groove music with a comparable tempo. The authors expected these effects to be more pronounced in women, as previous research suggests women can be more sensitive to musical stimuli than men.

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Study participants were 38 healthy students from the Faculty of Health and Sports Sciences of Ryutsu Keizai University in Japan. They were between 18 and 21 years of age, and 18 of the participants were male.

Each participant completed two exercise sessions in a randomized order. In each session, they ran on a treadmill for 10 minutes (including a 5-minute warm-up) at a speed they set themselves. During one session they listened to high-groove music, and during the other, they listened to low-groove music.

Before the experiment, nine members of the researchers’ lab listened to 138 music tracks from various genres and rated them for groove. The study authors used these ratings to compile the high-groove and low-groove playlists used during the exercise sessions. During the sessions, music was played through loudspeakers, and the volume was adjusted to be consistent across all musical tracks and was neither too quiet nor too loud.

After the exercise, participants rated the groove experience of the playlist they had listened to using the Japanese Version of the Experience of Groove Questionnaire. They also reported their mood using the Two-Dimensional Mood Scale.

Results showed that both male and female participants rated the high-groove music playlist as having a stronger groove experience than the low-groove one. Men’s running speed on the treadmill did not differ significantly between the two music conditions. However, women ran faster when listening to high-groove music.

Furthermore, after running while listening to high-groove music, female participants reported a significant increase in positive mood, specifically in vitality and arousal. Men’s mood was not significantly affected by the type of music.

“The present study demonstrated that HG [high groove] music increased self-selected running speed and positive mood responses compared to LG [low groove] music, and these effects were greater in female students with higher groove ratings for HG music. These results suggest that HG music promotes a positive mood and exercise adherence, contributing to health promotion through a physically active lifestyle [in women]. Coaches and fitness instructors can leverage these benefits by incorporating HG music into exercise programs to enhance motivation and performance,” the study authors concluded.

The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the psychological effects of music. However, the study was conducted on a very small group of participants further subdivided by gender and participants were all young, healthy individuals. Results on other demographic and cultural groups might differ.

The paper, “High-groove music boosts self-selected running speed and positive mood in female university students,” was authored by Kazuya Suwabe and Satoshi Kawase.