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Measuring exertion
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It pays to make an assessment of how much you exert while exercising
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YOU PEDAL hard on a stationary bike till you are out of breath. At the end of it all, there is no simple, practical, and objective way to measure exertion. Measuring the miles you walk and the weight you lift tells only half the tale. For example, an obese man walking a mile will exert himself more and will achieve a higher heart rate and oxygen consumption level than a physically fit person who weighs exactly the same and walks the same distance.
Research suggests that the aerobic value of exercise correlates more with the heart rate and oxygen consumption you achieve than upon how many miles you swim or run. Perceived exertion, more than an objective measurement of exercise in terms of distance, speed and force, is a reliable indicator of heart rate and oxygen consumption.
In the world of exercise, sometimes subjectivity wins over objectivity! The Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) is a mind-body scale that measures the personal feeling of effort, fatigue, strain, and discomfort during exercise in the body and mind.
A feeling of increased exercise intensity correlates well with increased respiration, oxygen uptake and metabolism and with the using up of carbohydrate stores.
The RPE must refer to the overall feeling of exertion, or to the feeling in the particular body part you are exerting. An honest answer to the question, "How tired do I feel on a scale of 6-20?" is all you need to use this scale. If you keep exercising at a particular value on the RPE scale, you will do a very good job of keeping your heart rate steady at a value suitable for the exercise intensity.
You probably have noticed that your stationary bike, treadmill and step machines measure exercise in RPEs from six, which represents a state of rest, to 20 which signifies maximal exertion. In between, 11 represents light exercise, and 15, heavy exercise. The RPE scale shows a somewhat
linear relationship with both heart rate and oxygen use during aerobic exercise.
Apart from measuring the intensity of everyday exercise, RPE can be useful when it is not practical to measure heart rate and when the individual is using drugs that alter the heart's normal response to exercise.
RAJIV M.
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