I was having a really bad day at home once, grumbling and complaining and claiming the whole world was against me. Then Rosie, my eldest daughter, turned to me and said “There is not one day in your life”.
It completely stunned me; instantly rendering me speechless and defenseless. Because she’s right: today might be tough but tomorrow is different. In the same way that a good spell won’t last forever. Every day is completely different, with unlimited variables that go into the mix that is us as individuals.
And yet, so many climbers approach every climbing session in exactly the same way. Whether that’s turning up and going through the motions, repeating the same routes or if every session needs to be the best they’ve ever had, for a large number of us, all of that life stuff is utterly forgotten once we step through the door of the wall or get to the base of the crag.
There are many different factors we can consider when tailoring each individual session to maximise gains but in this one, I’d like to explore something called Rate of Perceived Exertion and how paying attention to it can allow us to tinker each session through something often referred to as ‘Training Modalities’.
A Quick Note Before We Begin
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RPE: A Metric for How Hard You’re Trying
RPE stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion. It is an incredibly common in physical training, becoming somewhat ubiquitous, and the majority of top level climbing coaches – as well as physical trainers, physios, osteopaths and many more – will instantly know what you’re talking about.
What they may be less likely to know is the origin. Developed in the 1960s by Swedish psychologist Gunnar Borg, the scale was originally based on heart rate (more accurately heart rate divided by 10) to give a score of 6-20. The idea was that the harder you were working, the higher your heart rate and the higher your score. This could then be used in research and training.
However, it proved quite complex (strange to think of no effort at all having an exertion rate of 6) and eventually the system was simplified to a 1-10 scale. Technically, this easier system is called a Category Ratio Scale, or CR10 Scale, but they seem to have mostly now become synonymous and many will simply refer to the RPE Scale as a 1-10.
This video from Lattice goes some way to explaining it BUT don’t take it as gospel quite yet as I’ll relate it to your sessions better later on.
Crucial words: PERCEIVED EXERTION
The most important part of this for me is the wording; it seems very important. Firstly, this is PERCEIVED, meaning it is how hard YOU think it feels. This is where it becomes quite subjective and can be tricky (and why the heart rate thing didn’t hold water), with many athletes I’ve worked with in the past failing to fully appreciate their own ability correctly (more on that below). Still, it is subjective which is worth bearing in mind.
Then we have that word EXERTION simply referring to working hard. A low score means not working very hard, a high score means going all out. Simple as that really. Now, whether you are applying a very directed amount of effort (such as lifting a heavy bar) or judging the entirety of a session is again up to you.
Crucially, it’s all about judging how hard you are working for yourself.
Measuring Your RPE Score
Now, I mentioned that many aren’t great at judging their own RPE and I have a method that we can use to highlight to people their repsective efforts.
Granted the method has it’s flaws and I am by no means suggesting it is perfect. However, it does prove to you just how hard your various scores actually are and was good enough for noted climbing physiotherapist Andy McVittie to nick it off me (with permission, I will add, as Andy is a friend of mine).
To find out how to measure your RPE, please click here to view the drill/exercise. If you would like help with this, please get in touch to arrange a session in person.
To book your Developmental Session, please email [email protected] or get in touch below
Adjusting the RPE Over Your Whole Session
This is where things get a bit conceptual but bear with me. It’s going to involve us both thinking of our RPE on an individual climb AND over the whole session at the same time.
In essence, we need to consider our overall RPE for that session. Remember that a high RPE requires a lot of rest, while we can maintain a low RPE for a sustained period. So the higher our RPE for that session, the fewer climbs we want to try.
This concept then forms the basis of the structure of our session. [Note: you can read more on structuring your session here.]
We can then combine our target RPE with the number of climbs we want to try. Obviously we’ve got 10 different options (or infinite options if we want to be pedantic and decimalise it) but in the interests of simplicity I’m going to shrink it to three: a 9/10 Spike Session; a 3/10 Endless Session; and a 6/10 Compromise Session. Let’s go through some more detail.
The Spike Session
This should be fairly familiar to those of you used to projecting specific routes. The Spike Session picks one single climb at project grade. Often equated to a power or strength training session, here we are specifically focusing and putting all our eggs in one basket.
For one session though. Many climbers progress to the point where they continually do this type of session every time they’re at the wall and guess what? They find themselves injured. This is an important modality but it can’t be the only option.
The Shelf Session
So this is the slightly controversial one. It is based on the idea of something called ‘Power-Endurance’ which is itself debated (see this piece from Steve Bechtel). However remember that we’re not specifically interested in ‘training modalities’ but in session structure. And in my experience – with both coaching sessions and my own personal climbing – I find this a fantastic option.
The idea is simple: instead of one really hard climb or lots of easy climbs, we’re aiming for a compromise. So a few fairly-hard climbs. For example, 4 sport routes or about 10 boulders, all hovering around your flash grade (some a little higher, some on the flash grade).
It’s called a Shelf Session as a description of the graph. Remember we’re after about 6/10 effort.
The Bank Session
I’ve called this the Bank Session again to describe the shape it creates and honestly, I do this type of session regularly. It’s a great way to get back into it after a break and a great option if you’ve been doing a spike session the day before.
All of the climbs are sub-flash grade, ideally by quite a way. We’re trying to employ only about 3/10 effort; so really steady. The difference here is that we’re trying to climb a massive amount of them. So for me, for example, I completed one of these sessions at the Big Depot in Manchester and tried to do all of the auto belay routes sub-7a (which was all fairly easy for me).
This Isn’t About Grades… But Pick A Grade
We do need to address an important point: this isn’t about your climbing grade, this is about effort. Throughout this article, notice that we have only been discussing your RPE and NOT how hard you can climb.
Where it gets complicated is that grades are a measure of how difficult a climb is (they really are, even if it’s done badly in various places). Now, one could easily make the argument that the grade of a climb are a poor measure of effort but I’ve addressed this elsewhere (see here for ‘Grades: Help of Hindrance‘). And one would be correct, it is indeed nuanced.
The issue comes from the fact that RPE tends to be what I call reactive. It’s difficult to know what to climb that will generate the required effort level. What you get from grades is something prescriptive; meaning you’ve got a starting point.
Remember, though, that whatever grade you begin with will feel like one RPE score at the start of the session but will feel like a very different score at the end of your session. Crucially, to get this concept right, we are focusing on RPE, not on grade.
To get you started, and to work out a rough grade for finding out which climbs to start on, I’ve included a chart below. From here, you can find your max grade, multiply it by your required RPE number and divide by 10. That should give you a starting point (once warmed up).
Summary
Training modalities is a concept that is very common in climbing but aside from the intricacies of physical training, it can also provide us with a successful basis to structure our sessions.
We can effectively take the concept of RPE, and the required effort of the target climbs for that session, to inform us of how many are suitable to try. Going for the project today? Yeah, just stick to one of them. Want to get some endurance training in? Don’t do it and the project too…
It is a loose concept, one that can be adapted to fit what you need. It is also a concept that can be applied over multiple sessions; an example being that it is unwise to do multiple Spike Sessions in short succession so swapping one of them for an Endless Session probably a better idea.
However you choose to apply this, remember that it all relates to perceived effort, not climbing grade, though we will doubtless use climbing grades to point us in the right direction to begin with.
If You Enjoyed That…
All of these resources are provided to you completely free of charge. I’m a big believer of helping people however I can. Sadly, they are not free to create, often taking a substantial amount of time and research to create. If you would like to help support me, you can Buy Me A Coffee, with whatever donation you wish by clicking the button here.
References/Further Reading
Borg, G. (1982) “Psychophysical bases of perceived exertion” (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise)
Borg, G. (1998) “Borg’s Perceived Exertion and Pain Scales”
Foster Carl et al. (2001) “A new approach to monitoring exercise training”
Zourdos Michael C. et al. (2016) “Novel resistance training–specific rating of perceived exertion scale measuring repetitions in reserve” (Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research)