Forget costly personal trainers: according to the results of a 21-year study, your MP3 playlist could be the only fitness instructor that you will ever need. In the mid-1980s, scientists became convinced of the ability of music to transform our workout; one sports psychologist has dedicated more than two decades of research to finding the reason why.

Costas Karageorghis, who led the study, has discovered that training to music lowers your perception of effort and can trick your mind into feeling less fatigued during a workout. The result is that you are less likely to suffer from the breathlessness that can stop you completing that “uphill” setting on the treadmill.

The results of the Brunel University study reveal how the cardiovascular benefits of training can be boosted by running in time to your favourite beats. Matching the beat of the music with the tempo of the exercise can also regulate your movement and reduce the oxygen required during running by up to 6 per cent.

Athletes have long suspected that music boosts their performance: the marathon runner Haile Gebrselassie reportedly trains to the 1994 dance smash Scatman. Some athletes consider music with a fast tempo to be a legal drug with no unwanted side-effects and use it to pump them up before competition, or use slower music to calm their nerves and help them to focus.

But this is the first time research has looked in detail at the phenomenon. The results, published in the Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, reveal that plugging into correctly paced music increases stamina on a treadmill by 20 per cent. They also show that listening to music that matches the pace of your footfall can give you such a psychological boost at critical points of exhaustion and fatigue that it helps you to fight through the pain barrier.

Karageorghis says: “When you exercise, you go into a state of arousal, at which point the human brain looks for stimuli in your external environment to match. Slow-tempo music of 80 to 110 beats per minute [such as the Beatles’ Let it Be, which is 80 bpm] would be counterproductive, because your brain wouldn’t be able to create a harmony with running fast and the slow beat.” The ideal workout tempo is 120 to 150 bpm, for example Duffy’s Mercy.

To build up a successful collection of workout music, Karageorghis recommends counting how many times your feet hit the ground during a one-minute run. Next you should source music with a rhythm that either matches it or is a few beats per minute above that number.

The research has inspired Men’s Health magazine to launch a CD of fitness tracks mixed by the DJ Tom Middleton, while the record label audiofuel.co.uk is pioneering a service in which fitness fanatics can download compilations specially composed as a workout routine. One of its composers is Howie Saunders, who has written music for films such as The Matrix and Charlie’s Angels. “There have always been fitness music compilations, but we compose ours from scratch,” Saunders says. “Music that’s good to run to usually has 150 bpm, but that can be too hardcore for some because it’s usually music such as drum and bass or techno. The challenge is to compose music that is palatable and fits the rate.”

Karageorghis’s research is already being used by big companies. Last month Sony Ericsson called on joggers to sign up to its Run to the Beat half-marathon. Competitors run to the rhythm of their choice, downloaded on to their mobile phone or MP3 player.

Mobile phones such as Sony Ericsson’s W902 are being designed to serve the music fitness craze, developing Bluetooth technology so that users can run wire-free, as well as containing fitness tools such as a pedometer, stopwatch, calorie counters and running maps. And this is just the start. According to Karageorghis, despite 21 years of research, “our understanding of why music has such a big impact on our performance is only beginning”.

Move your body

Top ten motivational tracks, compiled by Dr Costas Karageorghis

1. Don’t Stop The Music Rihanna (122 bpm)

2. Mercy Duffy (130 bpm)

3. Move Ya Body Nina Sky (121 bpm)

4. Valerie Mark Ronson feat. Amy Winehouse (109 bpm)

5. The Creeps Camille Jones v Fedde Le Grand (128 bpm)

6. Low Flo Rida feat. T-Pain (128bpm)

7. Just Dance Lady Gaga (119 bpm)

8. Jump Girls Aloud (136 bpm)

9. Boom Boom Pow Black Eyed Peas (130 bpm)

10. Dance Wiv Me Dizzee Rascal feat. Calvin Harris (113 bpm)

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