The thought of judging training intensity by ones perceived exertion would make most multisport athletes quiver.  The reason for this is the belief that perceived exertion is too subjective.  Athletes and coaches don’t trust their own exertion in correlating that exertion to certain scientific variables, such as lactate threshold, VO2 max, etc. 

It’s not that I don’t believe in the scientific variables noted above. In fact, I understand and use these variables in perceived exertion training programs everyday.  I used to train my athletes predominantly off heart rate, speed and critical power zones based upon scientific variables.  I now train my athletes, and myself off perceived exertion.  I love it, and so do my athletes. The love comes from simplicity, cost effectiveness, and more confidence building workouts.  We still utilize all the science.  We review the output of key workouts using scientific means.  But we input our work into the training sessions based on our perceived exertion. The key to making this work is gaining a thorough understanding of what each level of RPE (rate of perceived exertion) should feel like. 

Lets tackle this whole idea that perceived exertion is too subjective.  Those who attempt this argument simply have not gained an understanding of what a given level of perceived exertion should feel like.  And let me ask you this question-why is it that many of the top coaches in our sport come up with different heart rate/pace zones for judging excersise intensity.  If you were to research ‘training pace zones’, or ‘heart rate training zones’, you would fine numerous results for training zones. Therefore, I conclude training by these methods are extremely subjective-far more subjective than learning to judge workout intensity by perceived exertion.

Perceived exertion, also known as RPE (rate of perceived exertion) is based on the physical sensations a person experiences during physical activity, including increased heart rate, increased respiration or breathing rate, increased sweating, and muscle fatigue.  The Borg’s RPE scale goes from 6 to 20, where 6 represents no exertion at all, and 20 represents maximal exertion.

Athletes of Perception Multisport receive a detailed training manual with continued evidence on the advantage of perceived exertion over other methods of training.  This manual includes my list of '20 reasons to consider perceived exertion.'  The appendix to the Perception Multisport training manual gives detailed guidance on each level of perceived exertion from 6 to 20, and how to correlate your physical sensations to the appropriate exertion.