Rate of Perceived Exertion versus Readiness to Train. This is a fascinating comparison. RPE describes how hard you are working, and RTT depicts your level of recovery and output potential. These terms are not synonymous, but they tend to (and should) work in parallel fashion.
RPE is but one of the many metrics available for gauging effort. Heart rate, power measures, and percent of repetition maximum (%RM) are others. On the original Borg scale, RPE had 17 points. Then it was modified to a 10-pt. scale.
Zones of effort, particularly when describing steady-state and locomotive exercise, are also quite popular. 3-5-6-7 zone models are commonly used, depending on the degree of specificity one wants to use when dividing up effort.
I use zones quite often in programming, especially when designing aerobic/anaerobic and endurance training. Most commonly, we’ll go with the 5-zone model, and I’ll usually include a color-coded table or spreadsheet for the athlete. Blue-green-yellow-orange-red is the color scheme for Z1-2-3-4-5. Recovery-endurance-tempo-stamina-maximum are the rough correlates to the numbers. This also matches up fairly well with an RPE of 5-6-7-8-9 (+) when using the 10-pt. RPE scale.
I also like the 3-zone model, popularized by Steven Seiler, PhD and others to describe Polarized Training. Easy-moderate-hard are the terms and this fits very well with a stoplight analogy of green-yellow-red. In polarized programming, you tend to not do much of the yellow. You go easy (green) most of the time, particularly in the off-season. But when you go hard on a relatively infrequent basis, you go like hell (red). With some modifications, this approach has proven to be extremely successful across a wide variety of endurance (and other) sports.
Getting back to RTT, I prefer the simple stoplight system above all others. How do you feel? Great, decent, or crappy equals green, yellow, and red…respectively. We’ve talked about all this before but the preceding information allows us to make the connection for which this post was intended. For the most part – on any given day – what you output in RPE should reflect where you are in RTT.
In other words, go hard (red) when you feel great (green). A high level of RTT will ensure that your body is ready to go for the upper reaches of RPE. Conversely, if you feel awful, going very easy is an imperative. RPE escalates from green to yellow to red. With RTT, the freedom to do anything intense becomes more constrained as you move upward through the colors from green to red. This makes intuitive as well as physiologic sense.
It’s the yellow stuff that has a requirement for introspection. Sometimes a yellow day turns to green as you warm up and loosen up. Other times it stays yellow and you make a few minor adjustments to your training. And (hopefully) rarely, it turns red and you bail out of the session or at least give it a major soft-pedal.
In supporting the major premise of this message, optimal fitness and athletic programming includes 2 key elements:
- Workout design and spacing to facilitate adaptation to the training stimulus balanced with ideal recovery for the athlete. We need to make the plan fit the situation and the person. A realistic plan automatically ensures a lot of green RTT days upon awakening and the potential to safely tackle the appropriate dosage of red RPE bouts. Sometimes a general and rigid plan works fine for a population, such as when dealing with a team of 17 year-olds with similar capacities. This is less true when dealing with Lifetime Athletes, whose characteristics are much more varied.
- Dynamic execution of training is critical for creating the wins in both performance and long term health. This is where the art of coaching comes on so strongly. Maybe not anyone, but a lot of people can design programs. But skillfully adjusting and applying those programs is where a master coach sets herself apart from the crowd. Sculpting the plan in an ongoing manner, to get the best outcomes, is where the money is at. Just because the program says “do this on this day,” we may need to tweak that RPE based on what the RTT is telling us. Failing to do this can lead to injury, illness, or breakdown. But making (sometimes very minor) adjustments to the sessions and schedule is how champions (and longevity kings and queens) are made.
This discussion naturally flows to the mental toughness topic. Some would say “If the program is written this way, you must complete the workout perfectly or you just plain suck.” You know, like a flexible system gives you permission to wuss out if a hair is out of place. I’m not suggesting either side of that nonsense. Mental toughness isn’t necessarily all about being miserable and grinding through most of your sessions, not feeling good and living in a chronic state of inflammation and self-loathing. Or even feeling great about completing all your workouts even though you’re not making progress.
Mental toughness in the case of the Lifetime Athlete is two things:
- Showing up, every day, even when you don’t feel your best and your motivation is not so high. This doesn’t mean you are going to bury yourself, but it means you aren’t making excuses and will adjust your workout appropriately and intelligently. Consistency, dedication, and discipline are rewarded here more than misapplied effort.
- Going hard when it’s time to go hard. This is the cornerstone of athletic excellence. It’s the fast, heavy, near-max efforts that really are the fitness and conditioning changemakers in this game. Sometimes that’s also true of the long stuff. But no matter how you look at it, big efforts require focus, concentration, and self-belief. Ramp up your CNS, know you can do it, and give it your best. Don’t let doubt or weakness creep into your rep, set, or session. Be tough…when it counts.
At this moment, as I reflect on the concepts we’ve gone over, everything appears fairly obvious. On the screen. But in reality, that’s not what I see every day all around me. Folks at the gym. In the pool. Rucking up the mountain. Out on the bike course. Even those wonderful people with whom I work and coach. Maybe not most, but certainly many people simply go a little too hard when they are supposed to go easy (most of the time) but then do not or are unable to (because they are not fresh) go hard enough on the big days to progress their fitness. They are usually chronically fatigued, have frequent illness or injury problems, and almost never advance in their conditioning or abilities.
I’m not being mean-spirited. The opposite is true. I really care about others and I want to do my part to contribute to more success and happiness in the world. Just so happens that I’m doing that in my wheelhouse, which is the health and performance arena. When I “signed up” for this coaching gig 40 years ago, I thought it would simply be a matter of telling people what was “good for them” and then watching them do it, and get amazing results. Perhaps I was a bit naive but now I have 4 decades of wisdom to share. Earned it through reps and experience. So, yes you’re getting my opinion…but it’s backed by science. Sometimes we just do things because we believe strongly in them. Even if these practices are “not quite right.” Humans. We hear what we wanna hear. Change is rarely embraced readily. Many clients come to me frustrated with a lack of results from these patterns, but they still end up kicking and screaming as they resist some of these inevitable adjustments in their training patterns. Until they start to see the results. Feeling great. Setting PR’s. Having more energy overall and getting their training into a place where it adds to everything they do in LIFE.
That’s being a Lifetime Athlete. And it comes in part from knowing how to balance RPE with RTT. Thanks for joining me today.