Why Use RPE?

You're new to the gym. You open up your fancy Core Blend Training app, excited for your first workout. And right there, next to your first exercise you see RPE 7. You've been in a gym before...but you've never seen that. 

I get that. RPE is weird, but it's really really useful so I'm going to explain what it is, but more importantly I'm going to explain WHY it is. 

So RPE is an acronym for "Rate of Perceived Exertion". It goes on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being a waste of time and 10 being the hardest possible thing you could do. Generally though we're really only going to use 6-10 in workouts because anything less than a 6 probably won't register as exercise to you. Something below a 6 would be the effort of me picking up my laptop and moving it around. Yes, I'm technically lifting something, but it's not registering as a workout. 

That part is relatively easy to explain and although you can get into a lot of debates about what exactly is the difference between an RPE 7 and an RPE 8, that's not really that important. An 8 is a little harder than a 7. That's really about as technical as you need to get. 

The question I'd like to spend time answering here is "Why". Why use RPE instead of prescribing a percentage of your max to you? 

First, when you're new to the gym, you probably aren't in a good position to "max out" any exercise. So we wouldn't really be basing that percentage off of a good number. 

Second, if you work out for a couple of months then you're likely going to get stronger. That means that whatever "max" we're using for our percentages is only going to be accurate temporarily. And everyone makes progress at different speeds so everyone is a little bit different with how often we'd need to retest and figure out if that percentage is right for you. And I don't want to have to retest your max every few weeks just to make sure that the percentage I'm prescribing you is still accurate. 

Third, since everyone makes progress at different speeds the percentage I assign to you for the third week of a program might be too easy or too hard for you. Maybe you're making progress a little slower than expected and it's too heavy. Maybe you're making progress a little faster than expected and it's too light. EIther way, it's unlikely that the percentage work I choose will be perfect for you. I'd like my workouts to be perfect for you. 

Finally, percentages don't care about your life. If your max bench is 200 pounds and you're supposed to do 90% that's 180 pounds. It's 180 pounds if you got no sleep. It's 180 pounds if your teen totaled the family van that morning. On those mornings 180 pounds would be way too heavy based on what is going on in your life. Percentages also don't care that last night you got 10 hours of sleep, your husband served you a perfect breakfast in bed of coffee, carbs, and a big jug of water that has you feeling like a million bucks. Now 180 pounds is too light! It's 180 pounds no matter what is going on in your life. 

Using RPE is great because it allows us the right mix of flexibility to make sure we build a program around you. In my opinion it is a better system than using a percentage of your max and that's why we use it in your programs as well as all of the programs we write for ourselves. 

If you ever have any questions about why we do things the way we do, you're always welcome to talk to your trainer and ask them or go right to the source and ask me. I love talking about this stuff and my email address is corey@coreblendtraining.com.

Thanks for reading. Keep training hard. Or keep training at an RPE 8. Whatever your workout has for you today.

Sincerely,

Corey Davis