Playlist – January Workouts

According to a cursory Google search extensive research conducted by The Progressive Subway Science Department (yes, we have one of those), three of the top ten New Year’s Resolutions are to do with fitness. Our scientists also learned that most resolutions are abandoned as early as February.

But never fear, intrepid reader! Our writers have put together another rip-roaring playlist to keep your fitness goals on track – this time focusing on prog music that Rocky Balboa himself would be proud to have playing over his montage sequences.

Whether you are a regular gym goer, a new years resolutioner or just love to hear progressive music that makes you feel like you can fight a house, we hope you find something in our new playlist that gets you in the zone.

Will

I have something pretty shameful to admit here: Progressive genres don’t feature heavily in my gym playlists – I find it can be pretty difficult to keep a pace with rapid tempo and time signature changes. That said, there are those songs that motivate and beg you to keep pushing when exhaustion drags at your heals. Songs like Melancholy‘s epic-feeling “Moon Spirit”, or The Vision Bleak‘s “By Our Brotherhood With Seth”. Mastodon also demanded inclusion in this playlist for the sheer brutal savagery of some of their riffs.

Mathis

I workout maybe 3-4 times a week, I want to be a calisthenics god and do cool pull ups and handstands and what not. Right now I am too chonky and need some motivation, and more than any other genre of music I turn to Progressive metal. I don’t know what Will (^^^) is on about, there is plenty of great progressive music to inspire a good sweat sesh. There is stuff for HIIT workouts like “Sing Sing Ain’t My Style” by First Signs Of Frost. Maybe you want a really good fast paced run, so you opt for “Outrun God” by Azure. If you look hard enough you will find some great workout jams, but always remember your strongest muscle is the heart so don’t lose hope when you don’t have a perfect gym playlist. You have what it takes in here (places hand gently on chest), some good anime training arcs help too.

Zach

It is a well known fact around the Subway Office that I am a literal fitness god. Nearly seven feet tall with muscles on my muscles, even Schwarzenegger said he was jealous of me. But I wasn’t always like this, I was once a weakling, just like you, reader. But with a healthy diet of crushed up vinyl records and 30 hours in the gym every day, I became the absolute Adonis that I am today. However, a workout is only as good as the playlist that accompanies it. You wanna hit the big lifts? You gotta listen to Meshuggah, this is workout 101 here. ‘Bleed’ is the obvious choice. You just set that on repeat for your entire workout and you should be fine.

Oh, wait, you’re still here? Why aren’t you at the gym? You want more playlist diversity? Fine, I guess. We’ve got the blackened, djent-y sensibilities of Immanifest with enough power in one song to kill a fellbeast. With Inferi in your workout playlist, you’ll be sure to feel like ‘A New Breed of Savior’ by the time your lifting is done. And no cardio day would be complete without The Odious Construct. I’d put the whole EP here but that would just be cheating. And capping it off is a song heavier than a neutron star. Unfathomable Ruinition‘s ‘Pestilential Affinity’, which has a riff that makes me want to run through a brick wall. You have the tricks of the trade now, little progling. Now get out there and go slam some steel bars to the ground!

Sebastian

When I workout, I pretty much listen to whatever I have scheduled to listen to that week, be it for our reviews, or for a discography run of one of the big prog metal bands that I have not yet given a chance to. But I included some of the underground songs that I think I would especially appreciate while exercising. I added Polars Collide because it is a top tier progressive groove metal album with very heavy riffs and immutable Meshuggah influences. I also added songs by Ihlo, Cave of Swimmers, and Umpfel because they have a lot of inspiring and upbeat melodic energy; great for persevering through cardio.

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