RPE and the Borg Scale?

[Adam Steer]

Hi,

The modified Borg scale used to rate perceived exertion goes something like this:

1 Very weak
2
3 Moderate
4
5 Difficult
6
7 Very difficult
8
9
10 Extremely difficult

For those of you who have been doing CST for a while, do you think those values correspond to your perception of the CST RPE scale? This is just for my own personal interest.

Thanks,
Adam

[Scott Sonnon]

Yes. It correlates. But the problem with the Borg scale is that it holds no relationship to rate of perceived technique and rate of perceived discomfort. This is the true genius of CST Intuitive Training - the inter-relatedness and interdependence of effort with technique and discomfort levels.

CST Intuitive Training teaches that one should not be performing very difficult (hard) work until one's specific technique is excellent (=>8) and one's discomfort (pain) level is moderate or less (=<3).

[Doc]

Maybe I'm a little out of date. Cardiac rehab isn't my thing. But the original Borg Scale was one of the foundation things for defining the idea of "RPE." It went from 6 to 20, with 6 being no exertion at all, 11 being light exertion, 15 being heavy exertion, and 20 being maximal exertion. It was designed to correlate with the heart rate. So a RPE of 11 on the Borg scale would correlate with a pulse of 110. So by design it was rather intuitive, and gave the therapist immediate feedback about how a patient was complying with any cardiac parameters during rehab. Note that it starts with the assumption that at rest your heart rate would be 60, which would be untrue for a conditioned athlete and make use of the scale outside of a cardiac rehab setting a bit less valid. I'm not familiar with the "modified" Borg Scale, but a 1 to 10 rating scheme completely negates any connection to the heart rate.

[Scott Sonnon]

Keith,

If that's the case, then there is absolutely no connection between CST Intuitive Training and the Borg scale. I made my comment only by Adam's description.

Thanks for the clarification.

[Peter Mitchell]

I don't know that the "BORG Scale" would apply to CST anyway because... "resistance is not futile!" :D

Three cheers for pop culture!

[Adam Steer]

Keith, you are right. The original Borg scale goes from 6 to 20. The numbers were meant to correlate somewhat with HR (6 for 60bpm, 12 for 120bpm, etc). But since effort and HR can vary so widely, and HR max values can be so different from person to person, apparently the original scale was also adapted to a simple 1-10 scale based solely on perceived effort.

I only posed the question because I was curious about how the values jived up with RPE component of the CST system of RPE, RPT and RPD.

Cheers,
Adam