Is Playing Drums A Good Workout? Does It Count As A Cardio Exercise?

It can be hard to find a workout routine you enjoy. That is especially true for those who are not exercise-driven or able to easily motivate themselves to exercise when there are so many things they would rather be doing. However, if you like instruments or music, playing the drums as a form of exercise may be the perfect compromise.

Playing drums is an excellent workout. It gets your heart pumping, making it a good cardio exercise. It can be used as a replacement for some other types of workouts. Additionally, you are most likely to get more from something you enjoy.

There are, of course, several different kinds of drums and different styles of drum playing. If you play strenuously enough, though, and really jam out, you can burn a great number of calories. You can also increase your muscle definition. Read on to learn everything you need to know about playing the drums as a form of exercise.

Burning Calories with Playing Drums

When it comes to workouts, one of the biggest things that people care about is how many calories it is going to burn. What is the point of working out if your body is not going to burn calories? If your goal is to lose weight, you have to burn off more calories each day than the number of calories you take in.

Each workout is going to burn a different number of calories. High-intensity cardio workouts burn more calories than most other exercises. Luckily, drummers get to burn a lot of calories while doing what they love: playing drums.

Playing drums can burn as many or more calories as if you did an hour of running, aerobics, or lifting weights at the gym. You can burn up to 300 calories per hour while playing your drums. So now you can get an excellent workout, all without ever having to leave the comfort of your drum kit. 

The Physical Effects of Playing Drums As a Workout

While playing the drums burns a lot of calories, that is not the only benefit that you get. There is a myriad of health benefits that you get from playing, and these are on top of the cardio benefits you get from playing drums.

• It exercises and strengthens the arm and core muscles.
• Playing drums boosts your immune system, which in turn prevents you from getting sick as often.
• Drum playing also helps to accelerate your physical healing. If you are feeling sick, hop on the drums and play to your heart’s content.
• Playing the drums will release adrenaline throughout your body, helping you feel good in yourself.

These are just a few of the benefits of playing drums in terms of a workout. It has also been shown that playing drums improves your mood, decreases stress, and works as an excellent therapeutic tool. So, if you are looking for a physical or mental workout, playing drums could be an excellent option for you.

Playing Drums Lowers Blood Pressure

One of the most significant benefits of playing the drums is that it can decrease your blood pressure, helping your cardiovascular system as a whole. Many people suffer from high blood pressure worldwide, and while it is not always the most dangerous thing, it can pose a threat to you living a healthy life.

Instead of trying out numerous drugs, expensive diets, or intense workouts, why not try out drum playing? It has been proven to lower your blood pressure, and you can do all that just from sitting in your chair playing the drums. Not only that but playing drums tends to be a really fun activity that helps you blow off steam and stress.

If you are a drum player, just keep playing your drums, and you can keep your blood pressure low and your body healthy. If you do not already play the drums, you might consider getting yourself a drum set. It tends to be an inexpensive way to decrease your blood pressure, and you may just find yourself loving this type of workout. What better way to vent frustrations than by banging on drums?

Playing Drums Is Good for Your Cardiovascular System

The heart is the control center of your cardiovascular system, and it reaps plenty of benefits when you play the drums as exercise. It can be hard to find cardio exercises that are good for your heart and are fun to do, but drum playing is not only good for the heart, but it tends to be a really fun activity to do as well.

Playing drums benefits your cardio system in several different ways.

• Playing drums increases your blood flow. This increase in blood flow helps lower your blood pressure and helps bring more oxygen throughout your body, including your brain.
• Playing the drums increases your heart rate. This goes hand in hand with increased blood flow.

An increased heart rate benefits you in a slightly different way than you might think. The heart is a muscle, and you need to exercise it in order to stay healthy, which is why increasing your heart rate when exercising is so important. Your heart gets its own workout, too.

Playing Drums Helps to Increase Cognitive Functioning

The last significant way that you will see a drum workout affecting you physically is by its improvements to your cognitive functioning over time. Drum workouts have such a strong impact on the brain because you are using your coordination and brainpower a lot more than with other exercises.

Other cognitive benefits from playing the drums:

• When you play drums, you receive more blood to the brain, bringing more oxygen to your brain. With more oxygen, your brain can function better, improving things like concentration and memory.
• Playing the drums also helps strengthen and create new synapses on the brain, which allows it to work more quickly and recall information more easily.
• Playing drums also improves the body’s motor skills by forcing your body to work with your brain’s visual skills. This combination helps increase your eye-hand coordination better than most workouts.

Arm and Core Muscles Are Strengthened While Playing Drums

When you are playing the drums, your arm muscles and core muscles are working together to create strong movements. These movements strengthen those muscles immensely over time. There are not very many other workouts that can give you the same muscle strength while also allowing you to have fun and enjoy a hobby.

Below are the main arm muscles that you use to play the drums. When you play strenuously, they are the ones getting great workouts. The main arm muscles used to play the drums are:

• Triceps
• Biceps
• Shoulders muscles
• Forearm muscles

However, these are not the only muscles you use to play the drums.

Other than the main arm muscles you use when playing the drums, you also use your wrist and hand muscles to play the drums. If you play drums regularly, you will see a lot of strengthening in those areas. The more you play drums, the more those muscles will be used. Your core muscles sustain you through the entirety of your drum session.

If you are looking for an excellent exercise to keep your hands and wrists healthy, then drum playing is the exercise for you. With the amount of technology that exists in the modern world, it is more important than ever to find something that can help keep your wrists and hands healthy. This can help you combat carpal tunnel later in life.

Is Playing Drums A Good Workout? Concluding Thoughts

Playing drums can be a good workout when it comes to the upper body and cardio workouts. Depending on the type of drums that you get for your workout, it can be slightly expensive to get started if you do not already own drums. However, with the numerous benefits of playing, the expense tends to be well worth it.

If you love to play the drums and percussion instruments, you could benefit from merging that hobby with your daily recommended exercise. You will be gaining strength and fitness, honing your drum skills, and enjoying yourself all at the same time.