Rate of Perceived Exertion, or RPE, is something we are always talking about in our community. We’ve certainly featured RPE as a popular article and podcast topic. Yet I continue to encounter many well-meaning Lifetime Athletes who struggle with the concept. My goal today is to simplify RPE in the clearest way possible.
We’ve talked about the original Borg Scale which went from 6-20 and was intended to correlate with heart rate when the chosen number on the scale was multiplied by 10. We also gave credit to the Modified Borg Scale which attempted to place a 1 to 10 numeric value on difficulty of breathing (respiration rate).
Those scales are a bit too complicated and difficult to process, particularly while you are exercising. Here’s an example below. It’s a photo of an instructional poster that I snapped in a fitness center recently. Sort of supposed to be a Modified Borg Scale but the creator just couldn’t resist adding a few more numbers and absolutely inane descriptors.
If you are like me and I bet you are…you probably looked that table over and thought “what the heck is this supposed to mean?” Why is “nothing” even on an exercise chart? What’s the difference between one level of “very heavy” and another? This is confusing, bogus, and practically useless.
In the context of training, we can describe everything we do using only 5 levels of RPE. I developed a 10-point scale (just for those who desired it) which runs from 0-9, but the first 5 levels (0-4) do not apply to exercise. Thus we can eliminate them and make data processing much easier for athletes and coaches. Here’s the first 5 levels, just for conversation’s sake.
| CONDITION | RPE |
| Lying in bed | 0 |
| Sitting in a chair | 1 |
| Standing still | 2 |
| Performing light task e.g. brushing teeth | 3 |
| Walking to the bathroom or mailbox | 4 |
Those levels equate to basic Activities of Daily Living and they have application for unhealthy individuals. They are unnecessary for athletes training for LIFE. Now let’s look at the simplified Lifetime Athlete RPE scale.
| DESCRIPTION OF INTENSITY DURING EXERCISE | RATE OF PERCEIVED EXERTION (RPE, 6-10) | % “WHAT YOU’VE GOT” FOR THE TASK AT HAND |
| Very Easy | 5 | 50-59 |
| Relatively Comfortable | 6 | 60-69 |
| Moderate | 7 | 70-79 |
| Quite Challenging | 8 | 80-89 |
| Very Difficult | 9 | 90-99 |
In our Training Tribe and most of my 1-on-1 coaching relationships, we relate RPE to many things. It can roughly correlate with repetitions in reserve, readiness to train, 5-zone models utilizing heart rate, power, VO2max, lactate threshold, maximum velocity, 1-rep maximum lifts, etc. And there are occasions when we want and need to be very specific such as when nailing down aerobic/anaerobic zones or looking at exact percentages of max weight or speed. But honestly, most of the time this simplified scale is not just entirely adequate…it’s most appropriate. It gets the job done in estimating effort without cognitive overload during physical output.
You can fractionate the rating if you desire, such as selecting 7.4 instead of just a generic 7. Let your personality drive that. Some folks ask why the scale runs 0-9 and not 1-10. That’s because lying motionless in a horizontal position requires no perceivable effort – and maxing out at 99% is indistinguishable from 100%. And remember, you can’t ever give more than the absolute maximum of which you are capable. There is no such thing as 110% effort.
The color coding system is great because it allows you to evaluate a workout (or a portion of it) with just a simple color. As much as I like fancy apps for athlete/coach communication, a simple spreadsheet is often easier to employ. Especially if you set up a column with conditional formatting such that it color codes itself when you enter a single number (your RPE rating).
Whether you like to record data or not, give this system a try. Rate your output in various sessions and exercises. It will increase your self-knowledge and training effectiveness.