Pumping iron while protecting hearing Part 1

Hundreds of thousands of Americans visit the gym for a workout on a weekly basis; some Americans make it a daily routine to stop at the gym. What all of those people may not realize is as they are fine tuning their body shape and cardiovascular health, they may be destroying their hearing. On any day, at any time of day, one can walk into a normal gym scene and see almost all of the exercisers wearing their iPods or other electronic music devices with the ear buds fixed securely in their ears. According to a study published in the December of 2009 issue of The International Journal of Audiology, those who use loud music to motivate during exercise may be doing serious damage to their hearing.

You can count on the fact the majority of those listening to their tunes in order to motivate their exercise are listening at top volume; blasting the music directly into their eardrums. In the same published study advising that music during exercise can cause damage, one of the researchers asked participants to listen to music in three different settings. The same music was used while the participants were resting in a calm, quiet environment, resting in a noisy environment and exercising on a stationary bicycle. The study concluded the act of exercising caused the participants to turn the volume up to unsafe levels, causing potential damage.

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