HRM & RPE

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HRM & RPE

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Training 6 sessions per week is all well and good, but if you don't do your training at the correct intensity, then you’ll limit the benefit coming from that training. There are 2 ways of ensuring that training is done at the correct intensity:

• Heart Rate Monitoring (HRM)

• Relative Perceived Effort (RPE)

You can use a heart rate monitor, which consists of a strap and transmitter worn around the chest with a watch/receiver unit on the wrist. The device picks up the minute electrical signals from the heart and allows you to see exactly how hard your heart (and therefore your body) is working.

If you wanted to do an interval session, you would check your monitor to see that you were well into the level 5 of my heart rate zones (see here to calculate your zones). During a tempo session keep your heart rate in zone 3 or 4, depending on my aim for the session. If it was during your long run,  keep your heart rate at around 145 beats per minute.

Here's a breakdown of the 5 HRM training zones commonly used:

Some people do not like to use a HRM, and instead choose to judge the intensity of their training effort on RPE. RPE was originally described by Gunnar Borg (Borg, G.V. (1982) Psychological basis of perceived exertion). He broke down the different levels of physical exertion into 16 levels - yes 16! This has since been scaled down by the American College of Sports Medicine (1986,Science in Sports and Exercise, 14, 377-381. American College of Sports Medicine), to the following 10 levels of relative exertion: