Treadmill Exercise Soundtrack: Getting the Tread Out

Is a treadmill your exercise equipment of choice? Do you want to maintain the discipline, interest, and patience to use it regularly for maximum results? Unfortunately, it is easy to get bored exercising on a treadmill, especially if the destination in front of your treadmill is a blank wall which you find yourself staring at as the time slowly ticks away and the miles take forever to accumulate. However, one way to make your time on the treadmill more bearable, and possibly even enjoyable, is to create a customized play list of songs on an MP3 player specifically chosen to enhance the treadmill experience.

Your choice of songs should be selected with the purpose of getting your blood flowing, and your feet moving enthusiastically so the time seems to pass more quickly and you are burning the calories and dropping the extra pounds without focusing on the exercise process.

If you have selected a list of songs that is right for you and have included plenty of tunes for variety, you may find yourself picking up your pace, walking a longer distance, ignoring the blank wall on the immediate horizon, and maybe even forgetting you are exercising as you rock to the songs in your earphones and head toward a healthier more fit body.

There is no definitive play list for everyone. Your song selection will depend upon your taste in music and what music gets your energy up and your mind and body motivated. However, the following ten song suggestions may help you create a play list that will motivate you to get the tread out: *

10. My Little Runaway - Stone Coyotes - The driving guitar and base combined with a song about a runaway is perfect for the treadmill. You may even find yourself walking in time to the steady drumbeat, which will only help you lose yourself in the song and forget you are working out.

9. Twenty Five Miles - Edwin Starr - If this song does not cause you to move faster as it soulfully encourages you "keep on walking" and reminds you that you "got to walk on," Then have someone take your pulse.

8. Road to Nowhere - The Talking Heads

You may even look like David Byrne doing that awkward hunched over stumbling walk/run in the video when you are on the treadmill but that is why you are not exercising in public. Besides, who cares, if it works. There is something so right about a song about going nowhere when you are walking in place toward a blank wall in front of you.

7. Dizz Knee Land - Dada - This song is a celebration of energy punctuated with a climax of drums and guitar that will make you believe you are a child heading through the gates of Disneyland instead of walking in place.

6. Slow Ride - Foghat - The contradiction between this song's title and its rhythm and pacing make it a great tune for the treadmill.

5. Flood - Jars of Clay - The shifts between the subdued and the hard driving guitar licks will push you to walk harder and faster.

4. Green Grass and High Tides - Outlaws - The furious guitar playing in this song will translate to furious strides on the treadmill and before you know it, nearly ten minutes of your work out time will have already expired.

3. Key to the Highway - Derek & the Dominos - Dominant guitars, a hypnotic rhythm, and the metaphor of the highway make this song a great addition to your play list to keep you on the road to putting those miles on the treadmill behind you.

2. Keep This Party Going - B52s - This energetic celebration of celebrating will pump you up and may even spark your imagination to replace that blank wall in front of you with images of the many different geographical locales called out in this song.

1. Runnin - Heartless Bastards - The raw energy of this song about running will have you, if not running, at least walking faster as you try to match the intensity of this song.

*The videos to these songs are for educational and reference purposes only and the songs are performed and written by the credited artists.