Many people who listen to iPods while working out in a gym crank up the volume, tearing up the treadmill in order to get rid out of all the cacophony reverberating all over the gym.

Bill Hodgetts, an assistant professor in the department of speech pathology and audiology from University of Alberta, cites no worries over listening to light music, but warns against the risk of having a hear loss due to the ear being exposed to loud music.

"Noise basically conditions everyone . . . to listen at a louder level", explains Hodgetts. "When you add exercise, people get even louder."

The study involved 24 male and female participants, to discover how loud they'd set their iPods under a variety of conditions. Subjects were placed on a stationary bike, then asked to adjust Stardust's The Music Sounds Better With You to their liking - while sitting quietly, while sitting with recorded gym sounds being played, and while pedalling with gym sounds in the background.

The observation revealed that volume levels climbed to hazardous levels once background noise was introduced, and went even further during exercise.

In addition, Hodgetts poses its worry over the risk associated with it taking into consideration that for how long the ear was exposed to such high levels of sound apart for the intensity of it.

To this he emphasized on the use of superior set of headphones to which he called as "passive noise cancelling", which could seal the ear canal and lessen the amount of background noise.