Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) Table

Using a Heart Rate monitor is an accurate means of determining your intensity during exercise. However these are not always available. Knowing at what level you should be training based on your goals is important. Use this scale to determine how hard you are working.  The  Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) table is a self assessment scale used by you to determine how hard you are exercising. This scale rates symptoms of breathlessness and fatigue during exercise. When determining what level you are at, evaluate how hard you feel your ENTIRE body is working. A rating of 6 would be comparable to getting up in the morning. A rating of 20 would be comparable to performing exercises that cause complete fatigue — where you could not continue for another second.

Training Zones

Warm up Heart Rate Zone: 50 – 60% of maximum heart rate: The easiest zone and probably the best zone for people just starting a fitness program. This zone has been shown to help decrease body fat, blood pressure and cholesterol. It also decreases the risk of degenerative diseases and has a low risk of injury. 85% of calories burned in this zone are fats!

Fat Burning Zone: 60 – 70% of maximum heart rate: This zone is a bit more intense and burns more total calories. The percent of fat calories is still 85%.

Aerobic Zone or Endurance Training: 70 – 80% of maximum heart rate: The aerobic zone will improve your cardiovascular and respiratory system AND increase the size and strength of your heart. This is the preferred zone if you are training for an endurance event. More calories are burned with 50% from fat.

Anaerobic Zone or Performance Training: 80 – 90% of maximum heart rate: Benefits of this zone include an improved VO2 maximum (the highest amount of oxygen one can consume during exercise) and thus an improved cardiorespiratory system, and a higher lactate tolerance ability which means your endurance will improve and you’ll be able to fight fatigue better. This is a high intensity zone burning more calories, 15 % from fat.

Maximum Effort: 90 – 100% of maximum heart rate: Although this zone burns the highest number of calories, it is very intense. Most people can only stay in this zone for short periods. You should only train in this zone if you are in very good shape and have been building up to this level.

Bridging the Gap between RPE and Heart Rate Zone

Try to identify where you fall on the RPE scale when your heart rate is between 50 – 70% maximum. This will allow you to accurately use only the RPE scale for measuring intensity when it is not feasible to determine your Target Heart Rate (THR).