2. Music = Doping

Have you ever wondered why people tell you that it’s better to listen to some energizing music when you work out? Or, if you have personally experienced doing exercise while listening to music, have you wondered why music ‘motivates’ you to run more? Well, it’s not only the amateurs who listen to music during or prior to exercising, professional athletes employ this method as well.

As we all know, Beijing Olympics took place only a few weeks ago. For those who keep up with Olympics, it wasn’t uncommon to see swimmers or runners listening to their iPods right before their games. Why you may ask? Well, many claim that music aids them and leads them to better performance, and one solid proof that we all known about is Michael Phelps.

I was just reading a Chinese article of Oriental Sports Daily on Michael Phelps and it specifically focused on his habit of listening to his ‘customized’ music play list before his competitions. He personally claims that his music plays a major role in his victories; his play list is so precious that Phelps hasn’t revealed to the public what songs are on his special play list yet.

Now, some specialists on the web have raised the controversial and iconoclastic argument that music is indeed like any other forbidden stimulant, and therefore, should be banned from any official sports games like the Olympics. They argue that because listening to music can create the same effect of stimulants, which are to excite the athletes and to aid them to perform better during game, music should be treated same as stimulants.

Dr. Alexei Koudinov, who is the editor of Israel-based Doping Journal Web site, sees a cheater when he sees Michael Phelps race. He believes that music gives Phelps an unfair advantage and has said that all of Phelps’ world records should be cancelled and the gold medals should be given to silver medalists. In this article, Dr. Alexei Koudinov gives an essay on why Michael Phelps has indeed, violated the stimulant conduct and doped his way to his records. He also gives a scientific research’s results from Dr. Stefan Koelsch from Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain sciences to buttress his own arguments.

“Music can have influences on the breathing rate (e.g. via emotional effects such an increased arousal) which will alter oxygen levels in the blood, or relaxing effects (so that fewer muscles consume oxygen, which also increases oxygen levels) and that music causes better saturation of hemoglobin with oxygen (a so-called SPO(2) parameter, compared with control subjects receiving no music, indicating an “enhancement of oxygen transfer”)”
Through the definition of ‘doping’, anything can be classified as stimulants if they increase human blood’s ability to carry oxygen. Therefore, music should be classified as a stimulant and hence, should be banned from sports. But why haven’t the athletic associations decided to do it yet?

From this issue arises a TOK concept which we had learnt last class: human science. We learnt that experiments in human science are not as accurate and reliable as those conducted for natural sciences. Perhaps in this case, it is the unreliablity and the lack of specific details (such as which specific type of music would increase blood’s oxygen carrying capacity) which still permit music to be used by athletes. In this case, the suspected stimulant is not in any form of chemicals, and thus, the effect of the so-called stimulant can only be tracked monitored broadly. Another factor is that as the experiment involves humans, the scientists cannot make sure that the testing subject each time is exactly the same; afterall, no two humans are exactly the same.Therefore, the results would always vary slightly depending on each testing individual and thus, lowers the accuracy of the data.

But think about this, would it still be possible for the experiments to show a general trend of music’s effects on people and their physical abilities? Although it might not be 100% accurate, there might still be a possibility that the results hold some kind of truth in it. If this is the case, do you think music should then be classified under ’stimulants’?