How to read your squad’s RPE

Two sevens are not the same seven

RPE is a subjective scale, and every athlete calibrates it their own way. Some almost never go past 7; others use 9 comfortably. That is not a flaw in the measurement: it is its nature.

The practical consequence is that comparing two players’ RPE says little. The comparison that counts is an athlete against themselves: a 7 from someone who usually gives 5 is a signal; the same 7 from someone who always gives 7 is nothing.

What to look at first

The deviation from the group in the same session. If twenty players did the same work and one rated three points above the rest, there is something to ask about — and it is one of the few athlete-to-athlete comparisons that does hold, because the stimulus was identical.

And the individual trend across sessions. A single high value after a match is what you would expect. Three consecutive sessions above that player’s usual level is something else.

When the number is noise

When it was asked at the wrong moment. Answered the second the session ends, the last exercise dominates; half an hour later, the number describes the whole session.

When somebody else filled it in. If the coach enters it, it stops being a measurement and becomes the expectation of whoever planned the session.

And when the athlete answers on autopilot. It is easy to spot: identical values day after day, including days that were plainly different. There the problem is not the data but the logging routine, and it is fixed by talking, not by changing the scale.