Maximising the impact of RPE data and other subjective measures with Shaun McLaren

This week on the Pacey Performance Podcast, Rob is speaking to Dr. Shaun McLaren about all things RPEs and subjective measures. RPE is no doubt the most used tool for coaches to understand an athlete's response to training. But just asking an athlete for a number to rate how hard a session was has lots of moving parts. When do you ask them? How do you ask them? Do you provide the scale on paper so they can see it? What scale are you using? Is the scale valid? How these questions are answered can have significant impact on the quality of data we get. And we all want to maximise data quality and not waste our or our athlete's time. In this episode, Shaun gives some great recommendations how we can make the "right" decisions when setting up a system to collect RPEs and other subjective measures. But before he does that, Shaun gives us a great overview of why he thinks RPEs are so valuable and the science behind their being. The type of scale used has sparked a number of Twitter debates about the type of scale that is used. So we dive into that black hole and Shaun explains why using a valid scale is so important and some of the downfalls coaches make when using non-validated options. If you want to maximise the RPE and subjective data that you are collecting, press play on the episode with Shaun on your chosen podcast player. Main topics - What does this data really tell us? Effort, fatigue etc? What common mistakes do people make when collecting RPEs which lead to them removing it Recommendations for collecting good data The importance of using validated scales The impact of using colours, different descriptors and emojis on scales How can those with minimal budget get an idea of their athlete's training status by using RPE/sRPE? How can they maximise their time investment? How well do athletes rate what we are asking them to rate?