Enter the athletic center at primetime. Quiet and moderately used by day, by evening, during that surreal period between around 4 o’clock, it descends into an organized form of chaos. Energy abounds as you enter the fitness center, packed with the varsity athlete and avid non-athlete alike. Treadmills and elliptical are snatched up like prime real estate; heavy iron is lifted, and then trades hands by the minute, and perspiration pours by the bucket. The floors bustle and the wooden beams over your head shake with the steady rhythmic thud of stationary running feet diligently burning away calories, mixing occasionally with the rattle, clank and occasional crash of weights dropped by exhausted limbs.
Outside, the cold and barren New England winter awaits, but inside the heat is in no short supply.
But coming upon this scene, something else was apparent. At the risk of sounding like a kid mourning the death of the walkman era, I couldn’t help but notice that virtually everyone has an iPod strapped to their arm, jamming out to their own music as they go about their workout.
Generally speaking, anything with a beat would suffice for workout music, but if this is the case, everyone would just pull out the plugs and listen to FM 105.5 droning out on the speakers above. Clearly some individual preference is at play here, and I was curious to find out what tunes were at the bottom of this simmering tide of people flowing in and out of the AC. To do so I posed a simple question: what music pumps you up for your workouts?
I began by asking around the weight floor, closest to the entrance. “I listen to a lot of gangsta rap and metal,” said Chris May ’14, chatting with a friend by the Smith machine. “Anything to get the adrenaline going.” His pump up music of choice included Mobb Deep, the Wu Tang Clan, Slipknot and Norma Jean.
But if heavier stuff seemed to be the genre of choice, pattern proved hard to find as I proceeded; a nearby gym goer was listening to “Love You More” by Basshunter. The next guy: “Antidote” by Swedish House Mafia, in addition to a fan of Archie V, a Russian DJ with growing popularity.
Moving upstairs, the results were also varied, with results like “Rock This Party” by Bob Sinclair, “Like Toy Soldiers” by Eminem and “A State of Trance,” a weekly podcast by Dutch DJ Armin Van Buuren. “I get tired of the radio after a while,” said one student talking with some friends by the dumbbells. “It’s the same stuff over and over.” Favorites among them ranged among Taylor Swift, Avicii and ACDC.
Back downstairs I decided to bring my search to a close, strafing along a fully occupied row of bikes and elliptical. More grab-bag results ensued: among them was “Adagio Over Strings” by Tiesto, “Stay Schemin” by Rick Ross, “Act a Fool” by Ludacris, “Give Me Everything” by Pitbull, “Fire” by Jimi Hendrix and “Shooting Stars” by Bag Raiders.
One student claimed not to usually listen to music during his workouts, preferring to run outside, wire-free. Next to him, Molly Bangs ’14 said she enjoyed working out indoors to music since her track coach doesn’t allow it during practice on the track. “I like to listen to songs that I could dance to,” she added.
Satisfied, I was about to call it an evening, but there was one last person I needed to ask. Tapping lightly on the window of Coach Wuyke’s office, he beckoned me in and the well-worn question rolled off my tongue.
A smile of knowing and surprise immediately shot across his face. “You guys are unbelievable!” he exclaimed. “I just concentrate so much on my running I don’t pay any attention to music,” said the former track Olympian. “For your generation it’s cool, but I’m old-fashioned.”
Let’s face it, though, on those winter evenings when the mercury is at rock bottom and a million other priorities on the top of our to-do lists, sometimes there’s no better motivation to pry ourselves out of our dorms and get across that Route 32 bridge. 
