In My Spin Class, Playlists (and BPMs) Are More Important Than You'd Think

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The other day, I got a fun email from cycling app Join, announcing that after analyzing over 13,000 publicly available spinning playlists, the company had gained some insights into just how crucial beats per minute (BPM) are for cycling workouts. As a spin teacher, I know all about that, but I still found it fun to see which songs crop up most often for people who are creating their own playlists. In the past, I've written about crafting a great cardio playlist, but a spin playlist is another beast entirely. If you want to replicate the spin class or Peloton experience yourself, here's what you need to know.

What's the deal with BPMs?

When I started teaching four years ago, I was purely a vibes-based instructor. I found songs that were fun, engaging, and loud, then compiled them into a 45-minute playlist, choreographed a little movement to go with them, and thought I was killing it. But I started paying more attention in other people's classes when I took them and joined a few online communities for instructors and, before I knew it, I was thinking much harder about beats per minute, cardio zones, and the overalls goals of every class. Did you know that many major gyms actually pay their instructors for an extra hour every week to account for the time it takes us to come up with our playlists? I didn't until I started teaching and at first, I thought it was nice, but excessive. Now that I do spend serious time applying science to my playlists, though, I think it's quite fair.

Science? Yes, science! Studies have been pretty clear about the effects of faster music on exercise duration, intensity, and efficiency: When BPM is up, so is heart rate, especially in a spin class, where you can more easily match, as I am always reminding my students, "your feet to the beat." On a treadmill, you can't always smack your sole down on the belt with every beat; it could be dangerous. Strapped into the humble, low-impact stationary cycle, though, you absolutely can, which means you can push your heart rate up into different cardio zones. There's even a word for this: Entrainment is the phenomenon that occurs when your body naturally syncs up with rhythmic stimuli.

Everyone's cardio "zones" are a little different, but the way I like to think of it, Zone 1 is 50% to 60% of your maximum heart rate, Zone 2 goes up to about 70%, Zone 3 goes up to about 80%, Zone 4 to 90%, and Zone 5 to 100%. Warming up in Zones 1 and 2 before spending serious time in 3 and 4 and a few teeny-tiny bursts into Zone 5 is just perfect.

To be clear, you're not expected to smash your foot down on every single beat. You can go half-time or double-time. So, you might want to aim to sustain a BPM around 130, but that won't consistently translate to 130 revolutions per minute (RPM) of the pedals. Instead, it'll be about 65 RPM. That's normal. According to the studies linked above, even hearing faster-paced music while you work out can increase your exertion and perception of it.

All together, then, I try to keep the bulk of my playlist songs within a range of 120 to 180, varying the resistance I'm asking for with each (which impacts the RPM). You might find that you can go a lot faster for a longer period of time or that you are struggling to keep up in those ranges. Taking a standard spin class can help you out, since instructors tend to design their playlists to meet people right in the middle of the different fitness abilities that might be represented in the room.

Choosing the best BPM for your workout

If you're crafting your own playlist, start with slower songs, stuff the middle of your playlist with faster ones (and keep your resistance low) and medium-slow ones (for high resistance), and throw in a super-fast track that you can match the beat of in 10- or 15-second intervals. Program in some recovery periods, too. I like to choose songs in which the chorus gets faster and the verses are a little slower, so we move back and forth while keeping—you guessed it—our feet on the beat. The recovery periods are built-in that way. Finish up with some slower songs.

You'd think it would be easy to hear a song and recognize if it's "fast" or "slow," but that's not always the case. You can use websites to help you identify the BPM of a given song. I like the aptly named SongBPM.

You can also find inspiration from other people. That investigation I mentioned before is a good place to start. Join found that the most popular spinning song is "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC. According to SongBPM, it has a BPM of 137. The average BPM of the most popular songs in that dataset is around 127.98. My participants really love when we do "Money on the Dash (Sped Up)" by Elley Duhé (150 BPM) or "Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!" by Vengaboys (138). In fact, if you're stuck, you can follow my personal spin playlist, which I update every other day.

Things to keep in mind

Don't freak yourself out about all of this. As long as you're on the bike and moving, you're doing great—and I remind my participants of that all the time. If you get too caught up in your BPM, RPM, and all the science and zones, you can get distracted from the relatively simple task of just working out, and that's not ideal. If you're struggling to create a playlist that works for you, take a few spin classes to see what instructors are doing—but again, don't worry too much. It's more important that you find songs you enjoy riding to and that actually get you on your bike than targeting the ideal heart rate zone and crafting a science-driven playlist. That will all come in time.