Workouts aren’t supposed to be easy. If they are, you’re probably not pushing yourself hard enough. That being said, your workouts shouldn’t be so grueling that they leave you in pain or dreading your next session.

While you might be initially tired, you should ultimately feel energized and uplifted — physically and emotionally — when you’re done exercising.

Toward that end, U.S. News & World Report recently shared 12 science-backed tips you can use to make your workouts feel easier.¹ The best part is, the easier they feel, the more you’ll want to keep going with your next workout.

12 Ways to Make Your Workout Feel Easier

1. Add Music

The intense nature of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) makes it one of the most-loathed forms of exercise for some people.

When exercisers were able to listen to their favorite songs during a session of sprint interval training, however, their perceived enjoyment increased and was consistently higher than those performing the interval training without music.² Researchers concluded:

“Listening to music during intense interval exercise may be an effective strategy for facilitating participation in, and adherence to, this form of training.”

Past research has also shown that music can significantly boost your exertion level during a workout.

While your body may be simply responding to the beat on a more or less subconscious level, the type and tempo of the music you choose may also influence your conscious motivation.

Together, the synchronization of moving to the beat along with being motivated by the music itself allows it to do its magic.

2. Get a Buddy or Join a Group Class

Exercising with a friend or enrolling in a group class can significantly boost your workout results. An Oxford University study on members of a rowing team found those who exercised together could tolerate twice as much pain as those who exercised alone.3

The researchers believe the effect is due to a heightened endorphin surge that occurs when working together as a group. They noted:

“This heightened effect from synchronized activity may explain the sense of euphoria experienced during other social activities (such as laughter, music-making and dancing) that are involved in social bonding in humans and possibly other vertebrates.”

3. Keep Your Eyes on the Prize

Quite literally, keeping your eyes focused on a target in the distance while walking makes you walk faster and makes the distance seem shorter, according to research published in Motivation and Emotion.

Study author Emily Balcetis, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at New York University, said in a press release:⁴

“People are less interested in exercise if physical activity seems daunting, which can happen when distances to be walked appear quite long …

These findings indicate that narrowly focusing visual attention on a specific target, like a building a few blocks ahead, rather than looking around your surroundings, makes that distance appear shorter, helps you walk faster, and also makes exercising seem easier.”