You might have seen it in a fitness article. Or the lifting template you bought from some company has it in the notes. Heck, it’s possible someone at the gym told you about how their squats “were an RPE 7” that day.

So what does it mean?

Rating or Rate of

Perceived

Exertion

This is a scale meant to reflect personal difficulty of a set. The scale is on a scale of 1 to 10; 1 being very easy and 10 being maximum effort. Most workouts won’t have you doing exercises at an RPE of 1, 2, 3, or 4. So no need to worry about it too much.

You shouldn’t have to think much about rating a set’s RPE. It should be something you should know and feel. Clients with little to no experience aren’t aware of their potential or what it feels like to be challenged. For this reason, I don’t rely on the RPE scale when working with beginner clients. For those who know enough about their weight lifting strength, it’s a handy tool for clients and coaches to work together to get the most out of training.

For example, Stephanie and I have been working together for months. We schedule her a deload week (a week where we intentionally work her a little less so she can recover from a difficult previous month or so of lifting). The deload week ends and we get start another block of training. I program her 3 sets of 10 reps on barbell back squats at 135lbs. But she is so well rested and recovered, she reports to me that the sets were an RPE 6. This means the weight was moderately difficult. I could have added either more reps, another set, or a little more weight to push her harder. Her RPE reporting gives me, her coach, an idea of how difficult the session was and how I can program her weights for future workouts.

I may use RPE with Stephanie for programming accessory exercises by telling her to pick a weight that feels like a certain RPE. In this instance, I could program leg extensions for 4 sets of 12 reps and at an RPE 8. Stephanie would then pick a weight that, if she were to complete a set of 12 reps, would feel like RPE 8 difficulty.

Another way to think about the RPE scale is how many more reps of an exercise could be completed. If Stephanie did her 3 sets of 10 reps on 135lb barbell back squats and she reported an RPE 6, this means she could have done 14 reps, or 4 more reps. If she reported the set as an RPE 7, she could have done 3 more reps. Stephanie reports an RPE 8, she could have squeezed out 2 more reps, and so on. But referring to reps that could have been done has its own terminology called RIR (Reps In Reserve). Both RIR and RPE are fitness jargon to gauge how hard a set and weight was.

RPE (Rating Perceived Exertion) is a scale of difficulty that allows coaches and clients to work together to give each other feedback on a workout.