[Just scroll down for the list of music...]
Sitting on an erg was never my idea of fun, but could it be easier? The power of a decent soundtrack to lock in the rhythm and add a surge of surprising energy has left me searching for the best music to erg to. I've still not found it, but the search has been long (way, way too long) and surprising.
Sitting on an erg was never my idea of fun, but could it be easier? The power of a decent soundtrack to lock in the rhythm and add a surge of surprising energy has left me searching for the best music to erg to. I've still not found it, but the search has been long (way, way too long) and surprising.
I was taught a brutal lesson after 2 hours of "single track repeat" on Michael Jackson's "They don't really care about us", which is great in small doses for rating 22 with its thumping rhythm, but there's only so much you can take. I had to find more music, or a different sport.
What follows charts a journey through the dreadful loops provided in the gym, our local radio station and shuffling the family's entire library of music and podcasts, all the while locking into the rhythm of the music and noting down the rating. The following selection is an embarassing one for me. I would, of course, like to offer thanks to the gym manager, the radio DJ and my family for diluting the list while taking full credit myself for the good 'uns. Pathetic.
Clearly anyone reading this is smart enough to have worked out for themselves the following, some of which were revelations to me:
1. That putting your iPhone in your pocket never works, but that those naff velcro arm bands are perfect to secure the iPhone to the middle of the Concept II's handle, allowing total thumb control "on the hoof";
2. That you can stop pulling the headset out of your ears every stroke by threading the cable down the left sleeve of your t-shirt. Using your thumb you can further adjust how far to the left the cable must be to avoid your knees;
3. That for a short-armed git like me the headset that comes with an iPhone is "just" long enough, but an extra couple of inches would be better (as some of you might have been told before);
4. That with the iTunes store and Limewire etc. every song I've ever wanted to hear is available to me in minutes (and many more I'd prefer not to have clicked);
5. That if you grin, and I mean a really full-face grin, when it starts to hurt the pain instantly subsides a notch or two on the scale. Try it... (Warning - avoid all eye contact as, without fail, this provokes worried glances from the girls and worse from the other guys); and
5. That if you grin, and I mean a really full-face grin, when it starts to hurt the pain instantly subsides a notch or two on the scale. Try it... (Warning - avoid all eye contact as, without fail, this provokes worried glances from the girls and worse from the other guys); and
6. That no matter how loud the music, the cutest girl in the room will always hear you fart.
The following is a random collection of songs, ranked in ascending order of rating. Some are perfect for "Russian light" (full power, rating 16) or rushing along at 32. All numbers are +/- 0.5, as many tracks fall between round-number ratings. I don't know how to make this form prettier, but try scrolling around and post a comment to prove you're smarter than me. Hopefully if you scroll down far enough you'll see that I'm using the power of Google Forms to allow anyone to add new tracks to the list. Any suggestions would be more than gratefully received as, while there are a number of tracks that work well for me, there aren't nearly as many as I'd hoped to have found in a list this long. Many are plain lame, but made the charts so clearly appeal to somebody out there. Please help me to improve/update this lousy beginning...
