Before every match, Serena Williams reportedly listens to Flashdance…What a Feeling by Irene Cara, a song that helps her to gather her strength and prepare her mind before the trials ahead. For workouts, she's a fan of Kelly Clarkson's Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You) and P!nk's Just Give Me a Reason. Last year's US Open champion Naomi Osaka, meanwhile, claims that Eminem and Nicki Minaj were crucial to her success.
据说每次比赛前，塞雷娜·威廉姆斯都会听艾瑞尼·卡拉的《Flashdance…What a Feeling》，这首歌能帮助她凝心聚力，准备好面对即将来临的考验。在平时锻炼时，她喜欢听凯莉·克莱森的《Stronger(What Doesn't Kill You)》和P!nk的《Just Give Me a Reason》。与此同时，去年美国网球公开赛冠军大坂娜奥米表示，埃米纳姆和妮琪·米娜对她的成功都至关重要。
You don't need to be an elite athlete like Williams or Osaka to know that a good song can get you pumped up and motivated. Everybody has a song or playlist to help get them through a jog or workout. But can it ever do more than that? Can music boost your actual performance as well as your mood?
你不一定非得成为威廉姆斯或大坂这样的顶尖运动员才能知道一首好歌会鼓舞你的斗志。每个人在慢跑或锻炼时都会有自己喜欢听的歌或歌单。但音乐的作用仅止于此吗？音乐是否能提升你的锻炼效果和心情呢？
Psychologists and sports scientists have taken these questions very seriously – and their discoveries could help us all create the perfect power playlist for the summer.
心理学家和运动科学家非常严肃认真地考虑了这些问题，他们的发现能帮助我们制定出今夏最完美的健身歌单。
Costas Karageorghis at Brunel University London has pioneered much of the research in this field. In his book Applying Music in Exercise and Sport, he identified many ways in which music can improve physical performance.
伦敦布鲁内尔大学的科斯塔斯·卡拉吉奥吉斯引领了这个领域的很多研究，在他所著的《运动和体育中音乐的运用》一书中，他指出了音乐提升体能表现的多种方式。
The most immediately obvious benefit is the intense emotional connection with certain songs. Listening to the Rocky movie soundtracks, for example, "can conjure positive imagery, a feeling that one can overcome adversity".
最显而易见的好处就是在听某些歌曲时产生的强烈情感联系。举例而言，听《洛奇》电影原声带“可以唤起积极意象，唤起一种自己可以克服逆境的感觉”。

Then there's "dissociation" – music helps to direct your attention outwards rather than inwards, and drowns out the feelings of fatigue in our bodies. This can have a particularly powerful effect with more moderate workouts. When listening to music, people tend to underestimate their exertion by about 10%, meaning the whole workout ends up feeling much less arduous than it would have without the music. This should increase your overall endurance, helping you to run faster for longer.
另一个作用就是“分离”——音乐能帮助将你的注意力转向外部而非内部，屏蔽掉体内的疲倦感。对于比较温和的锻炼，音乐的这种分离作用特别有效。当人们听音乐时，他们倾向于将自己付出的努力低估10%，这意味着听音乐锻炼和不听音乐锻炼相比感觉会没那么累。这将能提高你的整体忍耐度，帮助你跑得更快更久。
When we listen to a track with a fast tempo, our heart's rhythm automatically increases by five to 15 beats per minute. It also triggers the release of adrenaline – typically involved fight or flight responses – that could prime the body for greater exertion.
当我们听一支快节奏的单曲时，我们的心跳每分钟会自动加速5到15下。快节奏歌曲还会促使肾上腺素的释放，从而让体能发挥得更好。肾上腺素的释放通常和应付威胁时的生理反应有关。
For more rhythmic exercises, there can be some additional benefits – and this is perhaps best illustrated by the story of the legendary Ethiopian long-distance runner, Haile Gebrselassie.
更有节奏感的锻炼还能带来额外的好处，也许最有说服力的就是埃塞俄比亚传奇长跑运动员海勒·格布雷西拉西耶的故事。
His secret, apparently, was the song Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop) – the tempo of which, he claimed, set the perfect running pace. Love or hate the song, it worked: he won two Olympic gold medals and broke numerous world records.
显然，他的秘密就是《Scatman(Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)》这首歌，他表示，这首歌设定了完美的跑步速度。不管你喜欢还是讨厌这首歌，事实证明它是有效的：海勒赢得了两届奥运会的金牌，打破了多项世界纪录。
Karageorghis's experiments have shown that exercising in sync to a musical rhythm helps us produce more efficient movements, with less energy. The idea is that a network of your brain acts as a central "pacemaker" that sets the pace of the nerve signalling to your muscles. Listening to rhythmic music appears to boost the pacemaker's activity, leading to greater muscular coordination across the body, so we move further using less energy.
卡拉吉奥吉斯的实验表明，和音乐节奏同步锻炼有助于我们消耗更少的能量做更有效的运动。原理在于，你的大脑神经网络相当于一个“领跑员”，它设定了神经向肌肉发出信号的速度。听节奏感强的音乐似乎能增强领跑员的活跃度，促进全身肌肉的协调运作，从而能够运用更少的能量做更多的运动。
Even more powerfully, moving in sync to music can increase the release of endorphins, which should increase your pain threshold.
更强大的是，与音乐同步运动可以促使安多芬的释放，进而提高你对疼痛的忍耐力。
In 2012, Peter Terry at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia, put 11 elite triathletes on the treadmill as they listened to various tracks. He found that their endurance – as measured by the time it took for them to reach exhaustion – increased by nearly 20% when running in sync with the rhythms of the track, compared with trials when they exercised in silence.'
2012年，澳大利亚南昆士兰大学的皮特·特里让11名优秀的铁人三项运动员边听各种音乐边在跑步机上锻炼。他发现当他们伴随着音乐韵律跑步时，和安静地锻炼相比，忍耐力（衡量指标是锻炼多长时间会感到精疲力竭）提高了近20%。
With all these findings in mind, Karageorghis has some recommendations for the perfect gym playlist.
综合这些研究发现，卡拉吉奥吉斯对于完美的健身歌单给出了一些建议。
For weight training, he suggests looking for songs with a tempo of 110-145bpm (such as Queen's Another One Bites the Dust). If you are using heavier weights for slow repetitions (which increases tension and helps build muscle) you should synchronise your movements to every couple of bars.
如果你做重量训练，他建议你听节奏为每分钟110-145拍的歌曲（比如皇后乐队的《Another One Bites the Dust》）。如果你做的是缓慢重复的力量训练（增加肌肉紧张度，帮助增强肌肉），你应该让你的每一次动作和乐曲中的每几个小节同步。
For a light jog, try songs of around 120bpm such as P!nk's Raise Your Glass. Move on to songs of around 140bpm (such as The Killers' Somebody Told Me), and then up to 170bpm (e.g. MIA's Paper Planes) for higher-intensity runs.
如果你是轻松的慢跑，可以试试节奏为每分钟120拍的歌曲，比如P!nk的《Raise Your Glass》。如果要跑快点，你可以换成每分钟140拍的歌曲（比如杀手乐队的《Somebody Told Me》）。如果要进行高强度的跑步，你可以选择每分钟170拍的歌曲（比如MIA的《Paper Planes》）。
If you prefer the bike, aim for one cycle every two beats of songs from 90 to 168bpm for a relatively moderate pace. For faster pace, aim to cycle with each beat of a song between 80 and 120bpm.
如果你更喜欢骑车运动，中速骑行时建议你听每分钟90到168拍的歌曲，每两拍车轮转一圈，快速骑行时建议你听每分钟80到120拍的歌曲，每一拍车轮转一圈。
More generally, Karageorghis thinks that we should design our soundtracks to deal with the ups and downs of the workout. If you struggle to get started, for instance, he advises that you "include tracks that embody who you are and make you feel strong and empowered."
总体而言，卡拉吉奥吉斯认为我们应该按照锻炼过程中的状态起伏来设计歌单。举例来说，如果你刚挣扎着开始锻炼，他建议你“在歌单中放入一些表达自我、让你感觉强大有力的歌曲”。