HOW TO SELECT YOUR WEIGHTS

RATE OF PERCEIVED EXERTION is used to measure the intensity of your workout.

The RPE scale runs from 0 – 10 – I have additional posts on RPE in the FITNESS section of our forum, so check those out too!

This scale can help you quantify your workouts categorize how easy or difficult a certain drill is. For example, 0 would be how you feel when sitting or walking to the mailbox; 10 is how you might feel after an all out sprint for 30 seconds.

RPE SCALE FOR LIFTING

RPE 1-2: light, warm up weight
RPE 3-4: Moderate, starting to feel like you’re challenging yourself
RPE 5-6: Moderately heavy, you have about 4-5 more reps until failure
RPE 7-8: Heavy, you have about 2-3 more reps until failure
RPE 9-10: This would be your max effort, a 1 rep max

Think of it this way:

If the workout calls for 8 reps, you should be finishing your set feeling like you challenged yourself but you could definitely do another round. Not too easy, but challenging enough. That’s similar to a RPE of 3-4

If the workout calls for 6 reps, you should feel very challenged but you may be able to do a handful of additional reps if you had to.

If it’s too heavy and you can’t any more reps, that’s too much weight. If it’s too easy and you could do 20 more reps, your weight is too light.

For hypertrophy, your reps should hangout around 8-12 reps and your sets should ascend from about a 3-4RPE for your first set and end around 7-8RPE reps.