RPE; From Subjective to Objective in Nature
The widely popular method of monitoring intensity is under the spotlight in the industry.
It seems that RPE has been catching lots of heat as of late, once again, among people who think it’s reliability in progression isn’t as valid as maybe, percentage based, lets say for an example.
A quick recap for RPE;
RPE, or “Rate of Perceived Exertion”, is a framework of measurement of intensity levels that determine our effort of what we did throughout an exercise, set, and so on.
In simpler terms; how hard was the set? How much effort and intensity did it take on your end for you to complete the set?
This a measurement that is usually self determined in nature, so with that said, it usually comes form a place of subjectivity.
This is where RPE loses it’s validity with lots of people and where many see it as a “lesser” means of progression and adaptation.
While true that RPE is relatively subjective, let’s talk about how we can take something that’s subjective in Nature, and fine tune it over time to have it become more reliable, accurate, and in turn, objective.
Where RPE can fall short
While RPE is more subjective, many will automatically disregard this and think it cannot be accurate in terms of measuring intensity, and would rather go to something like percentage based training. As such, many will say that RPE style of training isn’t concrete enough like percentage based training and how can we rely on such methods to continue to progress us in our training?
I can concur that I fell victim to this in my earlier training years where I would often undershoot my true RPE judgement and I didn’t know what hard effort was supposed to feel like for a certain exercise or movement. But there’s the problem in itself right there; it wasn’t that RPE was failing me, it’s that I had lacked proper judgement in objectifying my real intensive effort.
The problem with RPE is almost always this; it’s not that the method itself doesn’t work, it’s that we don’t know how to implement it properly.
As in, Misusing RPE style of progression isn’t a principles based issue, it’s an issue of personal judgement and honesty.
Enter “Precision of Effort”.
Precision of Effort
Precision of Effort is pretty much exactly what it sounds like; it is an individuals ability to gauge what true, hard effort feels like, to be as objective in nature as possible to the task at hand at whatever it is their doing. The higher an individuals precision of effort is, the more honest and truthful they are to the judgement of their exertion levels.
Simultaneously, the more accurate an individuals precision of effort is, the more objective their judgement of RPE is in any exercise or task.
How we get to higher and more accurate levels of our own precision of effort is simple; we need to gradually gain more experience and exposure in these high levels of exertion to become more aware of what “hard” feels like.
As we gain more experience in these conditions of exertion and effort, our Precision of Effort becomes more fine-tuned as we experience what real, universal effort feels like.
This brings me to my next rebuttal that I hear that’s often said in the training space; “we can’t implement RPE to newer aged training clients because they don’t know how to gauge RPE”.
Here’s a whiteboard drawing of Precision of Effort; probably not the fanciest thing but I like a good whiteboard demonstration.
Implementing Precision of Effort to newer training aged clients
As we onboard new clients to our gym or our own coaching, there’s lots of things to put into consideration, as we all know; Their ability (or inability) to get overhead, how well can a client hinge, what are their current fitness levels regarding strength, cardiovascular health, general exercise experience, and so on. We meet them where they’re at, and we work with them in progressing them toward their goals, whatever that looks like.
What we gather from their assessments, we then work on progressing them through variation of movements (or possibly regressing, to fine-tune movement pattern quality and efficiency) to take clients on a journey of upward trajectory toward their goals.
While we help guide them through this, we can also consider the following; how can we teach our clients what real, hard objective effort feels like?
This is where we teach them the principles of RPE, how to moderate it and how to work it into their training.
A common rebuttal I hear from trainers is how we shouldn’t let newer clients use RPE because they may not have a grasp of how to properly gauge effort, citing that they may often undershoot the desired RPE intensity for a exercise/set.
While I won’t argue the fact that newer training aged clients tend to undershoot levels of effort (been there), I believe this sort of undermines the autonomy we give the client when they work with us.
It’s our job to help them become more honest in their exertion levels and to help let them know what it feels like to reach those peaks of effort.
To me, this is in the same breathe of not letting our clients learn how to make decisions in the gym by themselves as they gain more experience; are we really going to hold their hands forever and always tell them what weight to use, what modality to execute, what substitution to make if a piece of equipment isn’t available?
Then why would this be any different?
Sure, they may not have an accurate grasp of effort and intent in the beginning, but that’s kind of the point; we need to guide them, hold them accountable so they learn as they gain experience of proper judgement.
I’m in the business of helping humans become competent in their logic, approach, decision making and judgement when it comes to all things training and the gym. Let’s stop the hand-holding and guide them to that point so they become more resilient humans.
We say we’re in the people business yet we’re scared to let our clients have more autonomy, have them make mistakes, and shit, even make mistakes ourselves.
It’s cool, that’s what makes us human and that’s how we (and our clients) learn.
‘Til next time.