Rate of perceived exertion - or RPE - is a way of assessing how hard you are working without monitoring physiological variables, like heart rate, or external variables like speed or pace. It simply reflects how hard you feel you are working. Research has already shown that RPE is remarkably effective - it was a study from the University of Exeter that found people’s perception of effort during exercise was closely matched by their actual effort, measured in the laboratory.
But I came across an interesting study today (not new) which suggests that RPE is somewhat transient… fragile even. Researchers from the University of Southampton got runners to run at 75 per cent of their maximum on a treadmill in three different trials, and monitored their mood (known as ‘affect’ in psychological research) and RPE during each.
In the first trial, they were told to run for 20 mins - and did so. In the second trial, they were told to run for 10 mins - but when the 10 mins were almost up they were told to run a further 10 mins. And in the final trial, they were not told how long they would be running for (but it turned out to be 20 mins).
In the second trial, when the runners thought they were about to stop but were asked to carry on, mood (understandably!) took a bit of a dip. But RPE increased, despite the fact that the speed remained constant at all times throughout all trials. In other words, the runners rated their effort as ‘harder’ because of the unexpected extra mileage. This led the researchers to suggest that RPE is not purely a measure of physical exertion, but has an affective component, too. It reminded me of the 10-mile race I ran last weekend - a fellow participant asked me about the hills and I told him ‘there’s one at 4 miles and another at 7 miles but the rest is fairly flat.’ He came and found me, someway between 5 and 6 and said in an accusatory tone ‘you didn’t tell me about this one…’ Oops. I bet his RPE was sky high…
So what does this all mean? I think it means that your state of mind can have a big impact on performance, and that having someone - or something - else in control of your performance is disempowering and likely to make you feel that you are working harder than if you knew exactly what lay ahead. I’ll keep that in mind in my coaching in future - and my mid-race banter…