To take full advantage of your training and to maximize your performance, it is essential YOU become familiar with YOUR Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE).
Rating Perceived Exertion (RPE) is the oldest and still one of the best indicators of intensity and effort given. It is simply a subjective measure or personal feeling to the current effort, intensity and fatigue YOU ARE feeling. It is a number that YOU place beside a particular effort, working set, segment or overall workout.
Common ranges to use are 1 – 10 and 6 – 20 (Borg Rating).
To fit in with Xhale Training, I have split these into 1-5 which are also indicated in your training plan by the colours of the workouts.
LEVEL 0: Sitting on the sofa, reading a book, making a cuppa tea
LEVEL 1: EASY Easy paced running, but could go all day
LEVEL 2: MODERATE Sustainable effort, could carry on after the session. Able to maintain a full uninterrupted conversation. These will be your LONG RUNS
LEVEL 3: HARD Running consciously quicker,upting the effort, only able to talk in short sentences. These will be your TEMPO type sessions
LEVEL 4: DIFFICULT Running hard, you can only sustain this for a couple of minutes and only communicate with single-word answers. – These will be your LONGER SPEED SESSIONS
LEVEL 5: MAXIMUM Almost as hard as you can possibly push, sprint for the line. You may get to level 5 in some VERY SHORT SPEED REPS
As important as creating your training zones are, we don’t want you to become 100% dependent on them, nor do we want you to believe the numbers are written in stone. Learn to listen to your body and what it is telling you.