Systematic Differences in Mean Rating of Perceived Exertion and Session Rating of Perceived Exertion During Training and Competition

Purpose: Training load monitoring is an important part of evaluating training and competition. The rating of perceived exertion (RPE) is a useful subjective method of rating training intensity and training load. It has been assumed that the session RPE (sRPE), a single number representing the entire exercise bout, is a simple mean of the RPE during an exercise bout (xRPE). However, data showing a drift in RPE during the course of exercise bouts suggests that sRPE may be different than xRPE. Methods: We collected a large volume (all observations =1184, competition = 207, training = 976) of data from multiple modes of exercise, from a single laboratory, over a 30-year time period. xRPE was collected over similar to 10% distance/time increments (including warm-up and cooldown), and sRPE was collected similar to 30 minutes following the conclusion of the cooldown. Results: Across all observations (r = .95), competition (r = .75), and training (r= .94), xRPE and sRPE were well correlated. However, sRPE (6.1 [2.2] vs 5.3 [1.8]; 8.2 [1.2] vs 7.1 [1.0]; and 5.1 [1.9] vs 4.5 [1.4]) was systematically greater versus xRPE, particularly when RPE >= 5. Conclusions: sRPE does not represent a simple mean of momentary RPE across an exercise bout. sRPE is greater than xRPE due to a temporal effect with terminal RPE values exerting a greater effect on sRPE and to the effect of glycogen signaling which persists following exercise after other drivers of RPE have normalized.