These two things are contradictory to me. ‘I was working so hard that I physically couldn’t work any harder, but my exertion level wasn’t that high.’ That doesn’t quite make sense. If you can’t work any harder your at max RPE, if you can work harder you’re not at max RPE.
4 Likes
I didn’t say RPE wasn’t that high. RPE wasn’t changing (10/10), and performance was changing at that point in time. It comes down to what you said, and it’s correlation vs. causation in my mind:
Perceived exertion (i.e. a perception) isn’t going to be what primarily determines performance. Your fitness, ability, metabolic capabilities, pacing are going to be the primary determinant of performance in a given test or workout. And while some people have never pushed themselves at 100%, and others can bury themselves doing so, I still see RPE as mainly a byproduct of a bunch of other factors.
Take my example, I didn’t fail because of RPE being 10/10, that was a byproduct of me pushing as hard as I could for 20 minutes, and actually too hard towards the end - Performance was dropping in that last minute and FAST that last 30 seconds, but RPE was already maxxed and not changing.
Edit: Now, I will agree with you if you’re saying performance for a given person on a given day, well sure… RPE determines performance because you’re choosing to hold pretty much everything else constant, but that’s not what you said.
1 Like
I think I understand what you’re saying, and it seems to me like we’re just coming at it from different sides. I use RPE as another metric during exercise, I don’t ever really quit because I think my lactate is 6.8 mmol, I quit because my RPE is 10/10 and I have nothing left. I believe you see it as your physiology has hit a limit and that’s what’s driving your RPE to max. While you’re right that RPE is the effect not the cause, I would say it doesn’t matter what is driving RPE, it’s the perception that is causing me to quit. (I’m putting words in your mouth, but I think this is what you’re saying)
Also as a clarification, when I say performance I was more referring to personal performance vs one’s own abilities. You are obviously correct that fitness etc has a bigger impact on performance relative to others.
Edit: I see your edit now and I see where some of the confusion comes from. Most of my racing is time trialing, so I am often just racing against myself, so my thinking my be coming from a different place.
1 Like
Ok, I think it was a matter of us both reading what the other said in different ways. Intention doesn’t always come across well in snippets of text.
And, to go back to your original point, I guess I’ll agree if I re-word slightly. On any given day, if I can execute a 10/10 RPE workout in entirety, that’s clearly going to drive better workout performance than a lower RPE unless I do something like screw up pacing. And how this started, if loading myself up on 100g/hr of carbs during a shorter workout (I’ve also heard studies referenced that carb ingestion can lower RPE) helps keep me from quitting, or helps me push 10/10 right to the last second regardless if I “need” them (similar to music?) then game on…
1 Like
At 90kg and 60CTL it gave me 330W!!!
I suspect that at 67yo and 20% Fat I’m a not exactly bang in the middle of his data set
2 Likes
In cyclist traing bible book, endurance ride’s purpose is to train your body to use fat as fuel and train your fast twitch muscle more sustainable. Simply put, endurance rides help you ride long without very little power declining. In the book, which recommend RPE or HR as the tool to do endurance ride workouts. RPE should be between 3~4 or keep the heart rate approximately at about (LTHR-30beats). This is like the concept of “Riding slow before riding fast”. Similar concepts are also listed in Chris Froom’s biography book “The climb” and Tom Danielson’s book “Cycling on Form”.
For your reference. I think endurance rides are not always useless. Hope this infomation helps 
4 Likes
I did this. Aside from a few workouts with bursts, the entire TR Z2 catalog is IF 0.74 and below. I.e., we need to select “tempo” workouts to follow the guidance of @The_Cog given above.
Should we all be replacing at least some of the “endurance” workouts in our TR plan with “tempo”?