The Role of Subjective Feedback in the Coach-Athlete Relationship and the Importance of RPE as a Measure of Intensity

Pierre and Nicolette from Mountain Abandon were early adopters of our RPE scale for athlete feedback. In this article they present the science behind RPE, how they track athlete progress/fatigue with this data, and why they believe it develops the athletes inherent ability to self govern. In ultra running and endurance sports, being able to pace yourself correctly and evaluate intensity is key to success in both training and racing. With RPE we have a consistent measurement relaying only on the athletes brain, overcoming issue with poor data from devices which cannot know weather temperatures, caffeine consumption, sleep deprivation and other variables.

Just one more rep

Xhale co-founder and triathlon coach Mark Livesey presents the founding reasons for the creating of Xhale. He remembers some of his early experiences with coaches and instructors in the military. He quickly realised that the “old” style of coaching – breaking soldiers with “just one more rep” – did not develop resilience and instead caused unnecessary stress and resistance. Through these experiences he developed his own coaching style based on communication and the coach/athlete relationship. These are the principles on which Xhale is founded.