Can Music-Fueled Workouts Make You Happier?

We already know that cranking tunes during your workout can boost endurance by up to 15 percent. But now there's another bonus to an iPod-enhanced sweat session: a better mood during your gym time.

The study, published this week in the Journal Of Strength And Conditioning Research, assigned a small sample of college-aged male exercisers either self-selected music (blasting their own jams) or no music at all during their resistance workouts. The headphone-equipped exercisers not only performed better during their session but reported higher feelings of "vigor" than their non-musical counterparts.

The key here is that the men listened to their own music during their squat jumps and bench presses, not music for aerobic sessions chosen by those who organized the study, a first for this type of testing. So we decided to round up our favorite exercise jams in an effort to self-select our ways to a better, happier weight-lifting workout.