Rating of Perceived Effort (RPE) is the Most Underrated Skill an Athlete can Develop
You really, really need to get good at this one! I'll give you examples of how.
RPE is often considered the most “basic” form of effort perception, most will say it’s only good if you don’t have HR or power available to you. As with most things in sport, that’s kinda true but also a little too simple, RPE is totally subjective but then again it’s the most context relevant measure.
Why should I care about subjective measures?
Let me explain this with a concrete example that I’ve experienced first hand, I train for middle and full distance Triathlon so I have huge amounts of base or Zone 2 training as part of my program. This is all very normal and for it to work well you have to be fairly religious about keeping your power or HR within a certain range in order to make sure you are building the aerobic system. However, about 3 months into this seasons base phase I noticed my Z2 effort was feeling very easy, maybe too easy. This is a common adaptation in endurance athletes, the HR or power is the same but it starts to feel very easy & it creeps up on you, at this point you need to actually increase the HR zone by 5 beats (I’m using the Maffetone method as an example here) and therefore the effort equals out to compensate for your bodies adaptation to it’s training stimulus.
So I had a quick chat with my coach and we got together on a call and re-planned based on a higher Z2 HR for my running sessions. Easy, right?
Well, notice the reason I initiated this conversation with my coach was because of my Perceived effort. Yep, I’ve got all the shiny toys, power meter, heart rate monitor that’s accurate to 1% and even fancy goggles with a screen in them! But the most valuable tool I had in my arsenal was RPE, I was so in tune with how I was feeling and know my body well enough that even though I was running the numbers I wasn’t actually in the training zone my watch was telling me I was. Without having a solid understanding of RPE relative to my own work rate I wouldn’t have been able to improve my training adaptation and keep pushing my limits.
This method also works incredibly well and I would argue is even more valuable in reverse. What if you’ve had a really hard day at work and you’re doing your easy run at 9PM with a bunch of stress rolling around in your head, you’re tense, your heads not in the game and you feel anxious, do you think that run will feel harder? Your watch may tell you that you’re training in Z2 but your RPE is telling you you’re working really hard, this is another reason it’s great to go with your RPE, when you’ve had a tough day, bad nights sleep, eaten less than ideal foods for the last few days, you won’t feel great and you absolutely should dial the effort back based on how you feel. Even though a HR monitor or power meter is telling you that you re in zone X, it’s not a real indication of what is happening if you feel like you’re in a totally different effort range.
RPE used like this can mean the difference between consistent training or getting burned out, it’s a vital tool in your tool box. It’s for this reason that I think RPE is a highly under utilised tool that can act as the missing link in your training!
How to build this skill
I hope by now I’ve given you enough of a reason to at least explore RPE even if you’re not totally sold on it yet! So I figure your next question will be about building that skill, how do you “get good” at something so subjective?!
That’s actually quite simple to answer but it’s a practice not something you learn and then you understand it going forward, it’s not like a first principles type skill it’s very much something that you need to use or you lose!
So the short version; you need to pay attention to how you’re feeling in the vast majority or even better all of your training and racing. Yep, that’s it, pay attention!
It’s easier said than done though, you obviously have no point of reference for this stuff, especially if you are a new athlete, you’ll likely start this process and think; “is this feeling too easy? Am I actually convincing myself that I’m training by base but I’m actually slacking?” - Yeah, it’s tough to train a feeling, but that’s where the fancy tools can help you! If you’re working with a coach or you’ve figured out your own training zones you “know your numbers” as I like to refer to it. That’s a great starting point, you either have a solid idea of your HR / Power zones and if not you’re in the ballpark.
So, get started by running multiple sessions in a zone you want to get a feeling of, say you don’t know what your race pace feels like, great, run a 5K in your zone 3 after having your usual race day breakfast, a good nights sleep and adequate hydration. You’ve already set yourself up like you would on race day and then you will likely run a 5K race in your Z3/4 meaning you can use those numbers as your guide, then simply pay attention to the feeling during that session.
There you have it, that’s your first rep of developing your own RPE muscle! Then the next thing is to track it, keep that RPE up to date on all your Training Peaks or whatever platform you use effort record. This means you have a reference point to go back to and jog your memory. Each session you do, pay attention again, but also account for outside factors like hydration, sleep and nutrition. By building a picture of how you feel and comparing them to your numbers and other variables, you will build a mental RPE model and can assess your efforts over periods of training rather than just individual sessions.
You’ll notice that in the first section of this article I said the “base phase” of my training was feeling too easy, I didn’t say “my Z2 run felt too easy”. You need to build up a picture of your current phase over multiple sessions in the same discipline (swim/bike/run/gym). Because RPE will fluctuate based on the variables we discussed you need to build a big picture rather than treating everything case by case for it to be an effective tool.
The side best effect? Recording your RPE can expose other problems in your training, maybe by recording your RPE you figure out that your higher perceived effort days correlate with poor sleep or dehydration. So the effort of the training plan isn’t the issue, it’s actually how you are preparing for or recovering that needs work, not the sessions themselves. Cool, right?!
RPE and racing
Something I definitely want to mention but not necessarily focus on too much is racing against your RPE. You’ll find that athletes with lots of years in the sport and generally high levels of experience in training and racing will talk effort when referring to how a race felt.
This is another great use of RPE, you’ll hear athletes saying “that was a tough race so I needed to dial things back” or “I felt great and pushed on!”. Both of these are examples of them deploying RPE in a race to either make sure they finish or actually push the pace because riding, swimming or running their numbers was feeling easy.
RPE can be the difference that keeps you in a race or even gets you a podium, it’s a powerful tool when used by someone who has been paying attention to their physiology.
Hopefully a little more carrot to tempt you into training with RPE!
Final thoughts
The main thing I hope you take away from this article is that RPE when understood and regularly practiced can be an invaluable input into your training, regardless of the sport or discipline. Hell, you can even apply it to your non-sporting life too and help you tease out detrimental habits that cause you to feel less than 100%!
RPE is like a muscle, you have to keep practicing and paying attention for it to be a useful measure and valuable tool in your tool box. The more experience you gather as an athlete the more you need to pay attention and assess your efforts based on marginal differences in anything from weather conditions to routines outside of your sport.
I hope you can build that RPE muscle and use it to great effect in your training and racing, you’ll no doubt be better for it :)
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