Working out with Royalty-Free Music for exercise and fitness6 min read

Stock music and royalty free music is a great way for filmmakers and social media creators to cost-effectively and easily find music that they can use in their videos, games and more. And one of the media types that can benefit the most from using stock music is the ever-growing and ever more area of popular workout-, exercise, training, fitness and health. 

It’s quite obvious that pretty much any type of media that has to do with physical training and fitness will not just benefit from, but absolutely need, a musical soundtrack. Can you imagine an aerobics class or a high-intensity workout video without any music? That would be pretty bland. 

So whether you’re working with static and fixed content such as YouTube exercise videos and classes, or something more interactive and flexible like a workout app with customized exercise programs, then finding and licensing royalty-free music to download is definitely going to be part of your content development.

But where to start?

I think you need to start by determining whether you want the music to pump up the energy level, or to provide some more pleasant background music, perhaps behind spoken instructions from a trainer or guide. Or, if your content aims to bliss out and relax the participants (such as for yin yoga, restorative yoga or maybe Pilates), then you want to use relaxing and soothing music to still the mind. 

These days, with royalty-free music libraries often containing tens or hundreds of thousands of music tracks to choose from, it’s going to come down to how and where you can actually find what you need without having to wade through tons of mediocre stuff and unsuitable music. Here at Shockwave-Sound.com, every track we take in is actually curated and picked out by staff. We do not allow “self uploading” by musicians who just signed up to become a content provider — nor do we take in huge libraries of aging, pre-existing libraries. Every track at Shockwave-Sound has been listened to, considered, maybe discussed back and forth a couple of times with the artist, to polish it and change it a bit – and then finally the track is approved and then installed in our library. Due to this more traditional way of working with artists and new music, we feel pretty confident that our stock music library is of consistently high quality compared with other providers.

Let’s take a look at some of our specific offerings related to music for fitness and workout content.

Music for high-intensity workouts:

• Dance Mission – Positive, Uplifting, Smooth, Good positive energy. Classic dance sound.
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• Arrow To My Heart – More melodic, also uplifting, Euro dance / techno sound.
• Into the City – Quite similar to the one above. Happy and positive, dance-pop, quite melodic. 
• Rebound – Dance music with a more determined, cool, edgy sound. Great for workout. 
• All the Right Moves – Gutsy, high tempo, energetic, pushy, high intensity. Great music for indoor cycling.
• Live Well – Youthful, cool, funky electronic dance. Sporty, fresh, pumping.

These were only 6 examples out of the probably more than 1,000 tracks that we have in this style. If you find a track that you like and you want to hear some more in the same direction, then be sure to click the “Find similar tracks” option! This will take you to the Advanced Browse page, with several parameters pre-filled with settings taken from the track you started out from – so from there, you just click Search and you’ll be given a list of tracks that have several ‘indicators’ that match the track you started from. 

Medium energy, slick, streamlined fitness music:

• Fashion House – Funky and with a nice energy flow, not too intense, but motivating.
• Friends connection – Mid-tempo, feel-good, nice and cool background track.
• Future In Progress – Great forward drive, positive and energetic without being too much.
• Soul Summer Emoticons – Uplifting and energizing, but also kind of slick, smooth, cool.
• Melodium – Summery, inviting, fresh and invigorating, without being too intense. 
• Glitchy Fishes – Pumping, sizzling, cool and breezy. Great flow and medium energy.

Again, these were just 6 examples out of the thousands of tracks available. For many more suitable tracks, check out Suggested Production Types -> Workout / Fitness / Aerobics. 

Tracks “dropping down” for unwanted breaks and bridges?

A lot of music tracks have “breaks”, “bridges” or some kind of “down part” in the song that could potentially break the flow and make the track unsuitable for exercise and workout content because it kind of “takes a breather” for a few seconds in the middle of the track.

Music composers and artists do this because they want their music to be rich and eventful, to have some variety, to have some creative value over and beyond only a steady beat and the same stuff all the way through the track.

However, this “down part” may be unsuitable when the music is used for things like workouts and exercise, so in this case, it’s very useful to have some basic knowledge and skill in editing music tracks. With the most basic audio editing and musical skills, it’s very easy to edit a track to take out those breaks and turn it into a non-stop exercise music track without any “down part”. 

Here at Shockwave-Sound.com, for customers who licensed music from us, we offer a free basic music editing service. This can entail such things as removing a “down part” in the middle of an exercise track, creating a version of a track that matches a certain length, or even remixing a track, removing a certain sound or instrument from the track, and so on. We have the stem files for many (not all) of our tracks, and a lot can be done to customize the music to more precisely fit your requirements. With a bit of skill and the right software, you can do this yourself — editing the music, looping, cutting, slicing, chopping, changing the length, etc. is something that is fully allowed under our licensing terms. Or, ask us for help with it.

Hour-long, Non Stop exercise music mixes

In addition to individual workout music tracks and single royalty free tracks for workout and fitness, we also have (so far) 6 different hour-long, continuous music mixes for exercise and fitness:

• Non Stop Workout, Vol. 1
• Non Stop Workout, Vol. 2
• Non Stop Workout, Vol. 3
• Non Stop Workout, Vol. 4
• Non Stop Workout, Vol. 5
• Non Stop Workout, Vol. 6

Each of these contain many different tracks, but these different tracks are all in the same general style, mood, instrumentation etc. And we have mixed them into each other in a way that, say, a DJ would do at a dance club. Each track proceeds seamlessly into the next without any stop or gap, thereby creating aa 60 minutes continuous workout music experience. Check them out!