Damn my insufferable good Rhythm !

I am old enough to remember that song “The Rhythm is Gonna Get You,” by Gloria Estefan. More like, I spend all my time trying to get the rhythm.

I can’t dance. Like, I can’t ‘get down,’ or ‘boogie’ or any of that good drunk stuff—in heels or without. I can cha-cha, waltz, and salsa passably because of acting class. I can line dance if you give me earplugs, and I can zumba all day long—with half of my body at a time. I’m not quite sure where this rhythm came from, but I know one of my brothers is pretty damn good at drums, and my dad was in marching band back in the day… before he discovered football, I think. But I play bass, and the running joke is dammit, I can count to 8, and I’m pretty good at it, and so far that’s always been good enough. Sure, sometimes it’s more like “one, two, doo-de-doo, dun dun dun, and a-seven-and-eight,” but… well that’s how bassists count sometimes, okay?!

So. Science has totally proven that the music you listen to can affect your workout. If you listen to the right stuff, you get pumped. Like, this has been studied. What they can’t quite put their finger on, however, is what ‘good’ workout music is. I can’t exactly explain it either. But I can say this: When I have a bad music day on the ipod, I have a bad workout day at the gym. I don’t know why, but if I can’t manage to synch myself up to the beat, it throws me off completely. If I can’t keep up with a song because I’m tired, it ruins the moment. So I spend at least 1/3 of my workout trying to find the right song for the moment, which is unfortunate. I have a great fantasy idea of how to fix this, but I would have to build an elliptical from scratch and reprogram it entirely… and no I’m not going to explain myself until I get a patent on the idea. Anyways, it’s a cool idea.

Anyways, I had a bummer workout today [I was pretty beat] but, I have been slowly coming to the conclusion that the following bands are [almost] always safe bets for gym time:

#Mindless Self Indulgence

#Chevelle

#Deftones

#the Eels

#Electric Six

The following bands are extremely hit or miss:

#Smashing Pumpkins

#Nine Inch Nails

#Sick Puppies

#Tool

#A Perfect Circle

#Prodigy

There’s still over 1000 songs in my ‘test’ playlist. I’m slogging through them one run at a time… one of these days I’ll have a solid gym playlist. I can’t wait to post it. I don’t have my info with me, but I also can think of bands that seem like they’d be good for the gym, but surprisingly are somehow not. More on that later.