The Effect of Preferred Music on the Grip Strength of Musicians versus Nonmusicians: a Cross-sectional Analysis

While prior scholarship documents the ergogenic benefits of music in athletic settings, it fails to address how musical training influences physiological and neuromotor responses. This cross-sectional study investigated whether neurological activations caused by preferred music impact maximal grip strength (a surrogate marker for neuromuscular connectivity) differently in musicians compared to nonmusicians. Utilizing a quantitative, pretest-posttest experimental design, 20 participants (10 musicians, 10 nonmusicians) underwent six digital hand dynamometer trials, alternating between listening to a self-selected preferred song and silence. Data was analyzed using a mixed-design ANOVA and exploratory one-tailed paired samples t-tests on each cohort. All tests showed statistically significant improvements in grip strength when listening to preferred music (p < 0.05), corroborating current literature. The musician cohort demonstrated a substantially stronger response, with a stronger effect size (t(9) = -6.34, p < .001, d = 2.01), while the nonmusician group yielded a more moderate effect size (t(9) = -2.45, p = .018, d = 0.78). The interaction effect in the main statistical test, however, did not reach statistically significance, although the study may have been underpowered to detect an interaction F(1, 18) = 30.945, p < 0.001, η²ₚ = .056. Together, these results suggest that preferred music may increase grip strength in both musicians and nonmusicians and that the magnitude of the improvement may differ by musical training. The exact mechanism is not clear, but it may be due to stronger sensory dissociation from fatigue or more efficient arousal-performance optimization. If replicated in larger experiments with adequate power, these insights offer valuable implications for tailoring noninvasive auditory treatments to combat age-related or neurodegenerative motor declines.