How Hard Should This Feel? Understanding RPE (Rating of Perceived Exertion)
One of the most common questions I hear from clients is,
“How do I know if I’m working hard enough?”
That’s where RPE comes in.
RPE stands for Rating of Perceived Exertion — and it’s one of the most empowering tools you can use in your workouts. It helps you check in with your body, adjust effort levels, and build confidence without relying on trackers, apps, or external numbers.
Let’s break it down.
What is RPE, exactly?
RPE is a simple scale that helps you rate how hard an exercise feels — from 1 (very easy) to 10 (max effort). It’s based on your own perception, not your heart rate, pace, or rep count.
And that’s what makes it powerful. It helps you:
Know when to push and when to pull back
Make smart intensity choices without burning out
Adjust workouts to fit your energy level, stress, or recovery
You are the expert of your own body; RPE helps you trust it.
The RPE Scale (1 to 10)
This RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) chart provides a simple 1–10 scale to help you measure workout intensity based on how hard you feel you're working. It's a helpful guide for adjusting exercises to match your fitness level
How to Use RPE in Your Workouts
For Strength Training
Big compound lifts (like squats, rows, deadlifts):
Aim for an RPE of 6–8. Challenging, but not crushing.
Smaller isolation movements (like curls, lateral raises):
Work closer to an RPE of 8–10. These have a lower injury risk, so you can safely push closer to failure.
For Bodyweight Workouts:
Even without weights, you can still use RPE. If push-ups feel like an RPE 7 today, great: that’s useful feedback. No need to force yourself to match a past number.
RPE helps you adjust with your body, not against it.
Why RPE is Helpful
RPE teaches you to feel your progress, it’s not just about counting reps and multiplying volume
It helps you:
Avoid overtraining
Build awareness of effort and fatigue
Stay consistent even when life gets busy
One of the best things about learning to use RPE is that it helps you build self-trust and confidence in how you train and incorporate exercise and movement into your daily life.
So often, we’re taught to follow a workout plan exactly as written; lift this much, do this many reps, push through no matter what. But the truth is: your body doesn’t always show up the same way every day. Life happens. Sleep, stress, energy, hormones, recovery, they all affect how you feel during a workout.
RPE gives you a way to honor that.
Instead of feeling like you’ve “failed” because you didn’t hit the same reps or weight as last time, RPE lets you say: “Today, a 7 feels different than it did last week, and that’s okay.”
It takes the pressure off perfection and gives you permission to check in, listen, and adjust. That’s where confidence starts to grow — not from doing it “perfectly,” but from knowing how to make it work for you.
This is especially helpful if you’re following a templated program (like mine or one you found online). You get structure and RPE helps you bring flexibility to it. You can still follow the plan, while adjusting the intensity set by set, workout by workout.
And the more you practice tuning in, instead of powering through because you think it’s what you should do, the more you’ll feel in control of your own training.
You’re not just building strength. You’re learning to trust yourself. That’s a big deal.
One Last Thing: What About the Borg Scale?
You might occasionally see RPE listed as a scale from 6 to 20; this is the original Borg Scale, developed in the 1960s to match heart rate. (For example, an RPE of 11 would correlate to 110 BPM.)
For strength and everyday training, I use the simpler 1–10 scale, which is more intuitive and user-friendly.
Final Thoughts
Like any skill, RPE takes practice. Your first few workouts might feel inconsistent, that’s okay. You’re learning what effort feels like, and that awareness is worth celebrating.
The more you tune in, the more confident and capable you’ll feel.
Want a FREE printable, quick guide the RPE scale? [Click here to download it.]
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