How to tell if you’re working out hard enough (or not hard enough)
So one of my clients had brought up a good question during our weekly check ins:
"How can I tell if I am working out hard enough?”
So let’s be clear on one fundamental thing: you need to work hard at the gym, tearing your muscles apart so that they rebuild stronger, bigger, faster, etc. “Working hard” is an extremely subjective statement, and while effort may look different on other people, there’s actually a method we can use to help measure that effort so that we can work out with the proper intention and intensity.
Enter in: RPE (ba-ba-ba-daaaaan)
According to the CDC, the Borg Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) is a subjective measure of how hard you feel like your body is working during exercise. It is a scale that ranges from 0 to 10, where 0 means no exertion at all (sitting quietly) and 10 means maximum exertion (such as running as fast as you can). Using the RPE scale, you rate how difficult an exercise or physical activity feels to you. This can help you gauge how hard you're working and adjust the intensity of your exercise to meet your goals. When it comes resistance training, having an RPE of 7 to 8 means you have about 1 or 2 more repetitions until failure, while an RPE of 9 to 10 means that when you do that last one, you cannot do single rep more (similar to a one rep max).
Pro tip: if you're just starting a workout program, you may want to aim for an RPE of 5-6, which means you're working at a moderate level where you're breathing harder and your heart rate is elevated, but you're still able to carry on a conversation. If you're aiming for a more intense workout, you may aim for an RPE of 7-8, which means you're working at a vigorous level where it's difficult to carry on a conversation and you're breathing heavily.
Overall, RPE is a helpful tool to track your effort during exercise and adjust your workout intensity to meet your fitness goals. If you haven’t used this yet to measure your effort and exercise intensity at the gym, try it out - maybe you’ll see that you can actually push yourself harder than you thought!
Sources:
Perceived Exertion (Borg Rating of Perceived Exertion Scale) | Physical Activity | CDC
