What Is RPE in Soccer? A Practical Guide

If you've heard of RPE and assumed you need expensive technology to use it, the good news is the opposite: RPE is, by design, the cheapest and most accessible load-monitoring method that exists in football.

What RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) means

RPE stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion. It is, literally, asking the player how hard the session felt, on a numerical scale. It sounds simple because it is, and that simplicity is its greatest strength: any team, at any level, can start using it today.

The Borg scale: how scoring works

The most widely used scale in football is a 0-to-10 version of the Borg scale: 0 is complete rest, 10 is maximum possible effort. Players are asked between fifteen and thirty minutes after the session ends — not during, or immediately after — so the answer better reflects the actual effort.

Why RPE matters for injury prevention

Multiplying RPE by session duration in minutes gives you "session load," a metric that lets you compare real effort across training sessions and spot sharp weekly load spikes — one of the best-documented injury risk factors in football.

How to collect RPE from your squad

It's best to ask each player individually, not as a group — group answers tend to be influenced by teammates — and to record it systematically, not just when someone remembers to. A simple digital channel accessible from a phone is far more sustainable than a notebook that gets lost between sessions.

RPE vs. GPS and heart-rate monitoring

GPS and heart-rate monitors measure external and internal load with far more precision, but come at a cost most grassroots and amateur teams can't justify. RPE doesn't compete with that technology — it's the realistic alternative when it isn't available, and it remains useful even when it is, as a cross-check.