Do you need extra motivation? Switch on with this shortcut to listen to your “super song” when you need it most

At the beginning of the year, I started running again with the help of Fitness+ after the months of the pandemic, something that has always helped me not only to be physically fit – but also to disconnect mentally and balance some stressful seasons. Doing sports regularly is a very healthy recommendation, but it is also important to take advantage of it so as not to give it up prematurely.

Music plays a fundamental role in all of this. This is what motivates us and even on certain occasions pushes us to keep going. A good playlist is essential to go out for a mile. However, lately I’ve been missing something that we had back in the days of Nike+ and the iPod: the concept of the “Powersong”.

The powerful song it was a special song that we chose and could activate with a long press of an iPod button at any time during the race. Immediately, as if from a fall

Building our Super Song System with Shortcuts

This is what the shortcut looks like on iOS, but it can also be used on Mac

As at the moment there is nothing similar in Apple’s sports applications, I got to work to create a shortcut to imitate the operation of the “PowerSong”. I called it “Super Song”, because in the end, that’s what it is: our super song that fills us with energy at the last minute to give us the strength we need.

The operation of my “Super Song” Shortcut is very simple:

• While listening to music on iPhone or Mac (works on both), we can ask Siri “Hey Siri, great song!”
• At this time, the super song we set up will be played.
• When the super song ends, the next song in the list we were listening to will continue to play. We can request the super song as many times as we want because it is not destructive with our listening history.

The good thing about this shortcut is precisely that: we do not delete or stop the playlist we are listening to, as if we had simply created a “play such song” shortcut and then the music stops. Instead, the great song “sneaks” into our listening and then picks up where we left off. Just to get this the extra punch we need

With “Get information” we will see the data that we must add in the shortcut to identify our super song

Configure Shortcut It’s very simple: you can download it here or create it yourself with the screenshot of this article. The only thing you have to do is add song title, artist and album where I indicate in the capture. I advise you to copy this information by selecting the song you want in Apple Music and viewing its data in “Get Info”. Respect upper and lower case letters and do not enclose texts in quotes, parentheses or the like:

Copy your awesome song info here

Important: the song you choose must have added to your Apple Music library, or the shortcut won’t find it. Otherwise, I put a message that will tell you that you missed this step.

Basically what the shortcut does is grab the song we’ve identified, add it to the “Up Next” list, and skip to the next song – so it plays immediately. You can change the Shorten Mac or iPhone DataIt doesn’t matter since both are synced with iCloud. The last part of the “Next” shortcut to skip to the next song will know what device you are on to press “next” on Mac or iPhone. Here you don’t have to touch anything.

once with the shortcut in your library, you can duplicate it and give it more uses – not everything has to be sports. Maybe a shortcut with the song that helps your kids sleep? Or that melody you like when you get out of the shower? If you’re a bit of a DIYer, you can even add more than one song (I leave it to your taste).

Without a doubt, extra motivation never hurts rush our workouts or improve this time of day: you can change the name of the “Great song” shortcut (since that’s what Siri uses to activate it) also to your liking. Try it: and let the great songs come back to our life!

Background picture | Photo by Andrea Leopardi