If the Playlist Doesn't Slap, I'm Not Surviving This Run

The ritual starts before the run even begins. Leggings pulled up high, shoes laced like armor, and the walk into the garage is quietly ceremonial. The treadmill waits, powered down, its safety key removed after the last use so small children don’t get accidentally eaten alive underneath it. The safety key gets clipped back on. The screen lights up. A few half-serious wiggle stretches occur. The Apple Watch connects. Classes scroll across the screen like a lottery machine. There is strategy in the selection, because once a class starts, it’s game time, baby. But here’s the thing: none of it matters if the playlist doesn’t slap. The speed, the incline, and the instructor’s motivational monologue are all irrelevant if the music sucks. If the beat hits? Survival until next time. If it doesn’t? The run becomes a deeply personal form of suffering.

The same treadmill. The same body. The same running cues. An entirely different experience, depending solely on the music playlist.

This dramatic shift in experience illustrates what Sellnow describes as the rhetorical power of music. While a song may communicate meaning through lyrics, Sellnow argues that it also shapes how listeners feel, move, and interpret an experience in real time. In this case, the music does not physically make the runner faster or stronger; it represents emotional states such as urgency, defiance, or endurance that align—or fail to align—with the physical demands of the run. When the music is in line with the intensity of the workout, the experience feels manageable, even empowering. When it is not, the same physical effort becomes exhausting and psychologically unbearable. Music functions as a persuasive force that shapes how a run is experienced.

Sellnow's concept of intensity and release patterns becomes impossible to ignore once the run is in motion. When hip hop or trap music take over the playlist, the body settles into a sustained state of urgency. For instance, Meek Mill's Dreams and Nightmares' heavy bass thumps in time with when the feet fall, and repetitive rhythms offer no time for the mind to wander. There is very little release, and that is the point. The music holds the runner in a continuous push, mirroring the physical demand of moving when every physical instinct may be screaming to slow down. It's in these moments that endurance isn't a choice. 

Other music types shift the experience without hampering it. When Queen's Don't Stop Me Now comes on, the run transforms from survival to celebration. The tempo stays quick, but the releases arrive frequently and in a predictable manner, offering brief emotional rewards that feel like small victories. Each chorus lightens the psychological weight of the run without needing the body to relax, creating a beautiful balance between effort and exhilaration. 

In contrast, songs like Free Bird unravel the entire experience. Its slow build and delayed payoff stretch endlessly against the clock, forcing the runner to wait for release that arrives far too late to be useful. With no rhythmic urgency to cling to, each step feels heavier, rather than light as a bird. Time elongates and motivation drains. The body may still be running, but the music tells a different story... one that emphasizes anticipation rather than action. Intensity and release patterns actively shape whether the run feels survivable, victorious or downright unbearable. 

By the time the speed pulls back for a cooldown, it is clear the run was never just a run. According to Hadju, music's power lies in how it activates reward systems, reinforces patterns, and makes experiences not only pleasurable, but repeatable. The addiction is no different for what happens when I run. The body remembers which songs carried it through the hardest moments and which ones made time dissolve. The brain chases the feeling again and again: the bass that syncs with the pounding heart and the chorus that arrives right when quitting feels inevitable. As much as the gym bros would love to tell you it is, the next run isn't motivated by discipline. It is motivated by memory of the intensity it has survived, the effort that was rewarded, and the music that made suffering feel purposeful. 

And so the ritual repeats. The safety key gets clipped back on. The playlist is scrutinized. The run begins again.