Tracking training load can be FREE!

By: David GIl

If you read my previous article on training load, then you already understand training load and can differentiate between internal vs. external, and subjective vs. objectives measurements. 

If you did not read the previous article… you should do so and can HERE.

This article represents the entry into load monitoring, the first step, the lowest barrier; we’re talking RPE or “rate of perceived exertion.” We’re going to look at how it works, and how you, the coach, should apply it with your team/teams.

Every coach at the high school or club levels should be tracking player load in some form. Alas the reality is, not everyone can afford systems like wearable technology (for example, the VERT Team System). Budget, staffing, logistics… all of these are real constraints. You have budget challenges, staffing challenges, the list goes on. Sure, we could argue the cost benefit of healthy young athletes, but for now I’ll digress. 

So to start, RPE is your best option should some of the fancier tech currently elude your reach. RPE is easy to calculate, takes very little time, virtually no gear if you want to use a pen and paper, and can still be a very effective means of monitoring internal load of your athletes. 

RPE can be measured on various scales:

• 1-5

• 1-10

• 6-20

The most common method today is 1-10, but originally it was 6-20. Why, you ask? Because it was designed by a gentleman named Gunnar Borg to roughly align with heart rate. He used the basic resting heart rate of 60 and max of 200 to create the 6-20 scale. A 6 would effectively represent zero exertion, while a 13 indicated 130bpm, or moderate effort, and so on and so forth. This was the first clinically validated scale for RPE, however, we would soon find that using a 1-10 was just as effective, and less likely to confuse people. A 0 being no exertion is just easier to understand and explain than a 6. 

Pro tip, keep it simple. 1-10 is a scale that people understand. 

So what about using a 1-5 scale? This can also be effective, however it leaves less room for nuance. Jumping from a 3-4 would represent much more effort on a 5 scale than a 10. Research has shown athletes can better distinguish a 6 vs. 7 vs. 8 than they can between a 3 and 4 or 4 and 5. In fact the 1-10 was more repeatable and valid as a scale overall when compared to the 1-5 (Zhou et al., 2023). 

To measure RPE, have your athletes rate how they feel after each session on a 1-10 scale, with 1 being the lowest (zero really shouldn’t happen) and 10 being the highest. From there, you simply multiply that number by the duration of the session and voila! Session RPE. 

Here’s an example. An athlete rated practice an 8, meaning it was pretty intense. The practice was only 30 minutes long though, so the RPE score is: 240.

The next practice was only a 6, but it was two hours long, or 120 minutes. That RPE score would be: 720. So even though the first practice was more “intense,” given its short duration, the overall load was significantly lower than the next practice. While there are no set standards, typically 100-300 would be a lighter session, then 200-500 is moderate with anything above 500 being hard. Again, this is NOT set in stone, but can be a good starting place. 

Additionally, I always recommend coaches try to “predict” the RPE when planning the practice, or at least jot down what you think it might be. Then you can see how closely reality matched with expectation.  

Next, it's important to understand some of the pitfalls, especially during the initialization phase of RPE implementation. When you start, many athletes will have to feel out what a 6, 7 or 8 level practice is. When athletes either don’t have anything to compare it to, or perhaps are stepping on the court in poor shape, it will paint the session stress as harder than perhaps it really was relative to capability. For example, it felt like an 8, though 3 weeks from now that same practice would feel more like a 5. 

Additionally you could have athletes grab onto the last portion of the session, or the hardest portion, without giving much thought to the global load. Not dissimilar from watching a slow movie with an insane 15 minute action sequence at the end. The movie overall was pretty slow, but you walk out with your heart rate elevated and may remember it as more action-packed then it actually was. 

None of this “ruins” RPE. It is most effective when it is applied and practiced over time, which will also help athletes solidify  their grading-groove. That being said, I always recommend talking these points over with your athletes: 

• Rate perceived exertion for practice OVERALL, not just that one portion where you sprinted

• Rate the overall training demand, not your just your effort (that’s a separate concept all together, though obviously sharing some overlap here)

• Is there something off-court that made this feel harder than it should have been? (This can get tricky, but it's a critical variable, even if only the athlete really knows what it is)

That last point brings me to the first thing I’d add onto RPE once you get the hang of it, and that would be wellness scores. The reason for wellness scores, according to thought-leaders and researchers Carl Foster and Tim Gabbett, is that they give you an idea of what state the athletes are in when they are go into practice. Think of it as the fuel they have upon entering practice, or their general readiness. The RPE then tells you what the session cost, or the impact it had on a physical level. 

To combine readiness and RPE,  you would have the athletes rate some basic questions, usually on a scale of 1-5. Questions like sleep quality, mood, fatigue, muscle soreness, and even academic load can help you assess where the athlete may stand in terms of energy, and how ready they may feel to engage in a practice. We want this to be a simple and fast questionnaire, not something they hem and haw over. If you have those 5 questions, each up to 5 points, then an athlete who is absolutely crushing it in life, could come in with a wellness score of 25. Any scores below around a 15 may then be something to pay attention to, and if you have athletes sub-10, then that should be a fairly glaring red flag. This is really where you can start making informed decisions, despite their subjectivity. It’s actually the individual subjectivity that is the strength of this protocol, as it provides insight and may let coaches know where that athlete stands both physiologically and psychologically. 

From there, you always put the wellness score next to the RPE. So if you come into practice, the athletes all score a 15 or below on wellness and you had a 700 RPE day; that would be considered a high-risk session. If you’re able to then go back, see that it was high load, and low readiness, you can use that information to adjust your schedule. Give the athletes more rest, or review what sessions were lower RPE in the past that you could implement until you start to see their readiness/wellness scores come back up. It's also a great conversation starter in situations where athletes use wellness scores to communicate in a manner that’s oftentimes easier than striking up a conversation out of the blue. It's an opportunity to open up, while also giving the coaches a valid measure of athlete readiness and fatigue. 

You can use this link to grab a free RPE form. It will already have some sample data inside, but you can fill it in and roll. 

So if you’re not already monitoring RPE or wellness, this is an easy way to get started. It will help you to become a better coach, improve your relationship and understanding with your athletes and if applied correctly, boost performance through mitigating injury risk. Win, win, win. 

Once you’re ready for some objective data to take it to the next level, then you can reach out to info@vertsports.com to speak with our Performance Lab.

For more information on the VERT Team System,

please schedule a demo HERE.

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