Understanding this free metric will skyrocket your running and cycling.

TRAINING BREAKDOWN

“40% of runners and cyclists, either do not know what RPE means, or how to use it”

By Emma O’Toole

Hello, I hope you’re having a great weekend so far!

Question: “Do you know what RPE means and how to use it?”

This is the question I asked to the runners and cyclists in my free online community and the results came in that 40% of us either do not know what RPE means or how to use RPE in their training, that’s nearly 1 in 2 runners and cyclists!!

This is problematic.

Why?

Because a lot of training plans, beginner-friendly to advanced, use RPE as the metric to guide your runs, rides and strength training and thus carry the assumption that everyone knows what a 6/10 feels like.

And the truth is...

You don't know what your 6/10 feels like until…

1. You understand it.

2. You have lived it and beyond.

So, strap in, grab yourself a coffee and get ready for your RPE breakdown…

(… You may never train in the same way again!)

Let’s get into it!

 What is the difference between a 100m sprint and a marathon?

The 42.1km difference in distance and time.

Simple, right?

This thinking is a pitfall that a lot of runners and cyclists, especially those newer to the sport, fall into and miss what underpins one of the most important variables: intensity.

A marathon runner is not working at the same intensity as a 100m sprinter as it would be physiologically impossible to sustain a maximum intensity effort over that duration and distance. The marathon runner is working to the highest exertion level that they can sustain for that distance and duration. This is not the same intensity they would work at for a 10-12 second all-out maximum effort.

In practice, for many runners this looks like short, hard efforts that leave us very out of breath, legs burning and questioning how on Earth people can run for 4 hours without stopping!

Enter, Rate of Perceived Exertion.

Commonly referred to as RPE, rate of perceived exertion is a simple, powerful tool for measuring your effort level. It is variable and unique to you, based upon how you feel (both physically and mentally) and your experience with the activity.

The breath of scope is there to help us to understand our bodies' response to exercise and our effort levels deeper.

When you first begin running and riding, every workout may either feel 'hard' when you’re working and ‘easy’ when you’re recovering… 

Let’s take this bike analogy to explain further:

• When we first start training we have 1 gear. We’re riding a single fixed gear, it’s either ‘easy’ or ‘hard’.

• As we begin to train more, we now have 5 gears. We can differentiate between ‘easy’, 'steady', 'uncomfortable', 'hard' and 'all-out efforts'.

• Roll on a consistent period of training and we now have 21 gears. We can break each of those 5 gears into sub-gears. For example, ‘steady and comfortable’, ‘steady and maintainable’, ‘steady but challenging’ etc.

• As you progress with consistent training, you will develop 'more gears' and control over your effort level.

For the vast majority of our training, we are looking to develop our aerobic fitness for continuous, sustained running and riding, not exceeding a 6/10 RPE score. This means that we are targeting nothing more challenging than 'uncomfortable, but sustainable' for the duration of your run/ride.

If your runs and rides always feel 'hard', as if you could only utter 2-3 words (8/10), or 'challenging' where you could only speak in short sentences (7/10), you need to slow down and reduce the intensity of your workouts. This does not matter if you slow to a walk/jog, or you ease off the gears, as long as you're within your targeted RPE score of typically a 4-6/10 for endurance building sessions.

Why?

Because this is where the magic happens.

This is where your aerobic fitness and your ability to run/ride continuously develop. It is with that aerobic base that we can then begin to layer on speed and power.

What about RPE in my strength sessions?

Just like in our endurance training workouts, we can also use RPE to guide the intensity of our strength sessions. RPE is used to help you gauge which weight you should use for a certain exercise.

Let’s compare the following examples of 3 sets of 8 reps of a single leg deadlift exercise (a great exercise for runners and cyclists by the way!):

• Example 1: Cyclist is targeting an 7/10 RPE for the exercise and uses 2× 20KG dumbbells for 8 reps.

• Example 2: Cyclist is targeting a 4/10 RPE for the exercise and uses 2× 10KG dumbbells for 8 reps.

The number of reps has stayed the same, but the weight choice the cyclist has changed to reflect the RPE score they’re shooting for.

Now a big pitfall is runners and cyclists seeing an RPE score and applying it to the whole session. So the entire 30 minute workout feels like an 8/10 RPE rather than the 6 or so exercises that are included in the main body of the session.

This is a big mistake because the RPE has been set for each exercise to help drive a certain adaptation and response to your body, eg. we’re going to be hitting different RPE scores when we’re looking to build endurance vs absolute strength.

Another mistake is tying RPE solely to a weight: a harder RPE doesn’t just mean using a heavier weight. Just as RPE isn’t solely tied to you training at a certain pace/power, there are other variables at play eg. elevation, duration of the interval/block, intended purpose of the session. Check out this previous newsletter on “When to Lift Heavier” that I wrote last year, (click here to read).

RPE is a brilliant subjective measuring score that doesn’t require any equipment and is one I encourage you to work with as a runner and cyclist to improve your training and performance.

If you would like to put this into practice so you have ‘lived it’, I have just the workout for you! Please reply to this email with RPE and I will send you the workout across for free and I’ll also send you over the exact scale I use with my coached runners and cyclists.

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