I spend a ton of time making workouts for myself. Which is a tip in itself; try to get another good trainer to do it for you but that is another blog post for another day.

I, however, spend as much if not even MORE time picking what songs I want to workout too. Sometimes I think I just workout so I can listen to my songs at an unholy volume every other day.

Without a kick ass playlist, I find it really hard to train at my best.

As a Hispanic from Miami, Florida, I used to spend the most of my time listening to Spanish music both inside and outside of the gym. I loved it, until at one point I didn’t anymore. I still enjoyed it outside of the gym, but it just didn’t get the job done when training.

Eventually I started getting interested in other music genre’s like rap, rock, and even oldies like Bee Gee’s and the Beatles.

It almost became a hobby to mix and match different songs with each other, different times during the workout and even on certain days.

I went from listening to music from Daddy Yankee and Wisin y Yandel to Bee Gees to Dropkick Murphys to Darude to Sean Paul to Eminem to Disturbed to Survivor and so on.

I even think I found a way to “systematize” my workout music selection. Musical program design, anyone?

My rules to picking workout songs are revolve around variety, order, long term enjoyment.

I’m one that can’t stand to listen to the same genre of music every single training session. This is the reason why I MUST have a ton a variety on my playlists. Although it might look weird to some, I’ll have both hard rock and soft musicals on the same playlist.

One reason for the variety is because of the actual training session itself and here is where order comes in.

All of my training programs, whether it’s for me or a client follow a specific order – usually warmup, core, power, main training, energy system training and finally a cool down. Knowing this, I make sure that the songs I pick flow with this.

You can’t be “on” every workout so I make sure to conserve my “pumped upness” for the main part of the program.

Just as you would work up to the main workout, I like to build up my playlist. During warmups I’ll put some soft music or anything that just sounds good but doesn’t really do much to my heart rate.

By the time I get into the core and power work, I make sure I pick the right songs to ALMOST get me ready to kick some ass.

Once the main training and energy system sections are up, I have my “crazy” songs come up to rip things up in the gym. Hence the crazy.

Once the cool down comes, I’ll progressively tone things down to soft music.

It might be just me but this is exactly how I like it no matter what songs I actually pick.

Lastly, the music has to “last” for a long time because although I spend time putting together different playlists, I would much rather spend my time doing something else.

For this reason I include more songs than I actually need in my workout just in case I would rather listen to something else that specific day.

I also make sure pick only upbeat songs as I don’t enjoy more than one insane song a workout.

For now, this is my current playlist:

-It’s My Time by Fabolous

-Welcome To The Jungle by Guns N’ Roses

-Blue (Da Ba Dee) by Eiffel65

-Burning Heart by Survivor

-Eye Of The Tiger by Survivor

-Heart’s On Fire by John Cafferty

-No Easyway Out by Rovert Trepper

-Enter Sandman by Metallica

-Lose Yourself by Eminem

-Till I Collapse by Eminem

-Dance Dance by Fall Out Boy

-Crawlin by Linkin Park

-No More Sorrow by Linkin Park

-Somewhere I Belong by Linkin Park

-Fireproof by Pillar

-The Bird And The Worm by The Used

-Stupify by Disurbed

-Down With The Sickness by Disturbed

-Undead by Hollywood Undead

-Remember The Name by Fort Minor

-The Sweetest Victory by Touch

-Gonna Fly Now by Bill Conti

-Now We Are Free by Hanz Zimmer

It’s 23 songs deep and so far it’s worked perfectly for the past month. Sooner or later I will change it up (probably sooner) but it gets the job done (y).

So tell me, what are YOUR favorite workout songs? Care to share your playlist? How do you go about picking a song over the other?

I really enjoy reading your comments so go at it!