Monitoring training part II - using RPEs to track intensity & volume

Hopefully part I has helped to illustrate how important it is to have a handle on what is going on on the training field as well as in the weight room. This part now is written with the collegiate strength and conditioning coach (SCC) or private trainer in mind. Part III will cover what to look for when you analyze the numbers you get from this and some suggestions in program design.

Using a Rating of Perceived Exertion as a method of monitoring training was first formalized by Borg in the late 40 years ago. Research has shown correlation between RPE and other measures such as heart rate, lactate levels, and oxygen consumption (see J Sp Sci, 20: 873-899).

Initially, a 6-20 scale was suggested:

• 6 - 20% effort
• 7 - 30% effort - Very, very light (Rest)
• 8 - 40% effort
• 9 - 50% effort - Very light - gentle walking
• 10 - 55% effort
• 11 - 60% effort - Fairly light
• 12 - 65% effort
• 13 - 70% effort - Somewhat hard - steady pace
• 14 - 75% effort
• 15 - 80% effort - Hard
• 16 - 85% effort
• 17 - 90% effort - Very hard
• 18 - 95% effort
• 19 - 100% effort - Very, very hard
• 20 - Exhaustion

Later, the 1-10 point scale became popular, and it is this scale that I have used with my athletes.

• 0 - Rest
• 1 - Very light
• 2 - Fairly light
• 3 - Moderate
• 4 - Some what hard
• 5 - Hard
• 6
• 7 - Very hard
• 8
• 9
• 10 - Very, very hard

Athletes tend to find this scale easier to understand, and you can tweak the descriptors (next to the numbers) to match terminology that your athletes may best understand.

Once you decide which scale to use, you then need to have short meeting or educational session with the athletes and coaches to explain what you are going to do, how it is going to benefit them, and what you expect from them. If covered in that order, it is easy to get them to buy-in. It is all about improving performance, and decreasing the risk of injury. Beyond that, athletes like this system because they now have an indirect input into training. Empowerment is a very strong tool!

An important aspect to this is that you have to be clear what you are actually asking from the player. Carl Foster suggests you just ask "how was your workout" and leave it to them to give you a number. On the other hand, I prefer to ask them, "how intense was your workout". I have found that this results in a score that better represents what we want from them - and when multiplied by session duration, we can get an idea of training volume. However you decide to approach this, consistency is the key.

If the player struggles to come up with a single number for the session, you can suggest they think of each part of the practice and try to make an average for this as a whole. 90% of the time you don't need to do this, however, as players will quickly become accustomed to giving RPEs for all forms of training.

In the meeting above, cover the method you will use to collect the scores from your athletes and rehearse it. The exact method you use may depend on your circumstances and are described below:

1. You (best option), the sport coach or team captain (next best options) talks to each player individually and obtains a score. Although the score should be taken subtly so that teammates do not influence each others scores, strict confidentiality is overkill and time consuming.

2. Place a shoebox with a slot cut into it (or more secure version of this) in the locker room. Each athletes should write their score with their name or initials on a small piece of paper and post it through the slot. This is a good method for many reasons, but can be more time consuming when it comes to data entry and some athletes may forget unless the box is placed in a visible spot or a sign is used as a reminder.

3. A recording sheet / chart is pinned up on a notice board in the locker room and players fill in their numbers. This method may lead to one player's score influencing another's and this is undesirable. We want each player to feedback on their own session, not anybody else's. When it comes to analysis we will be looking both at individual outliers (who may be working too hard, or may not be getting an adequate training stimulus), and at the team average.

Method 1 is, in my opinion, the best way to go, with option 3 the worst. Whichever way you decide to go it has to be logistically convenient, and you should keep the method of collection consistent for reliability.

What is important is that scores should be taken 30 minutes after the session has finished. This allows the athlete to better summarize all the elements of the whole session into one score. If done too soon after the workout, the athlete tends to only think about the last thing they did (be it hard or very easy), and this will skew the figures. In the real world, if you get the scores just as they leave the locker room following showering or after the post-session meeting, then it should work well.

Below is an example of a recording sheet that I produced for Crystal Palace Baltimore in the North American Soccer League (effectively D2 pro soccer in the US). This sheet works best with methods 1 and 3 above. Click on it for a bigger view.

Each double column represents a session, whether it is a soccer session, a recovery session in the pool, a team lift, or a scrimmage. If you have no other way of analyzing competitive games, then you MUST also take RPEs for games (along with playing time). Remember the important thing is that we are looking at the big picture and should include every physical session whether it is hard or easy. I do feel that tracking the intensity and volume of loads lifted is better and easy to do for lifting sessions, but regardless, the RPE is useful and brings everything into the same "units" for analysis. 

Taking a closer look - you can see the example that I have entered. Duration is likely to be the same for the majority of the team in most team sessions, but some athletes, such as a player returning from injury may only do a partial session, whilst others may do more (unused substitutes from the weekend, for example). As mentioned above, duration can be factored in with the RPE (effectively a rating of intensity) to create a value for the volume of work done, so it is important that the figure is accurate to each individual. The stop-watch should start at the beginning of the warm-up, and should be stopped at the end of the cool-down. Similarly, the warm-up and cool-down should be included in the athletes perception of the workout as a whole.

Is this method purely subjective? Yes. Will athletes sometimes give false scores? Possibly, but in the whole scheme of things, if athletes are lying to you then there are probably other issues. In my own personal experience, when the process has been explained fully to the athlete, they will want to give "correct" readings because we are empowering them in the training process.

We used RPEs with Crystal Palace when away without our HRM system 
on tour in Sweden - even young players such as Alex Wynter, Ibra 
Sekajja, and Rhys Williamson-Murrell valued having an input

Here is Part III and covers what to do once you have the numbers. All the facts and figures are worth nothing unless they are appropriately analyzed, interpreted, and then applied to future training.