A Coach’s Take on Heart Rate vs RPE Training and Real Performance

There’s no shortage of data anymore.

Garmin watches. Whoop bands. Oura rings. Heart rate, HRV, resting heart rate, recovery scores, power zones - the list goes on.

And don’t get me wrong - I use and recommend data. I’ve tracked my resting heart rate for over a decade, watched what HRV does when I miss sleep or eat poorly, and used structured metrics to guide training that helped me race at the highest levels.

But if you think that heart rate alone tells you how hard you worked - or how hard you should work tomorrow - that’s where you’re getting it wrong.

Let me break it down.

Heart Rate Is a Response - Not a Truth

Heart rate training is one of the most popular tools in endurance sports. It helps athletes develop aerobic capacity, build zone 2 endurance, and structure workouts with clear intensity targets.

But heart rate is a reflection of what your body did, not what it felt.

If you show up after a bad night’s sleep or too much caffeine, your heart rate may spike higher than normal. If you are dehydrated or stressed, it climbs faster at lower outputs. During short intervals, heart rate often lags behind the actual effort.

That doesn’t mean heart rate training is wrong. It means heart rate reflects cardiovascular response, not total system strain.

And performance is more than cardiovascular output.

Heart Rate vs RPE Training - What’s the Difference?

When people compare heart rate vs RPE training, they often think they need to choose one.

But is that optimal for effective training?

Heart rate training is objective. It gives you measurable data about how your cardiovascular system is responding to workload.

RPE training - Rate of Perceived Exertion - is subjective. It measures how hard the effort feels based on breathing, muscular fatigue, mental strain, and overall stress.

Heart rate can be influenced by sleep, stress, hydration, heat, and travel. RPE captures how your entire system is handling those variables in real time.

If heart rate and RPE align, your training intensity is likely right where it should be.

If they do not align, that is valuable information.

RPE - The Metric the Pros Still Use

RPE stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion. Simple in concept - powerful in practice.

Instead of asking what did the machine read, RPE asks how did YOU respond?

Here’s the practical scale most athletes use:

1-2 - Easy, warm-up pace
3-4 - Aerobic, conversational
5-6 - Steady, controlled effort
7-8 - Hard, focused work
9-10 - Max effort, near redline

This is not guesswork. It is integrated nervous system feedback. It captures:

• Breathing rate

• Muscle fatigue

• Mental strain

• Cumulative stress

• Recovery state

Unfortunately, no wearable can fully account for all of that.

Why Combining Heart Rate and RPE Improves Performance

The real power comes from using both heart rate and RPE together.

Pacing Long Efforts

During long runs or long rides, cardiac drift naturally increases heart rate over time. If you rely strictly on heart rate zones, you might slow down unnecessarily.

RPE helps you determine whether the effort is actually becoming unsustainable or simply drifting as expected.

Short Intervals

Heart rate lag is common in high-intensity interval training. Your watch might show a moderate zone while your body is clearly working at a high output.

RPE provides instant feedback on intensity.

Recovery and Readiness

If your resting heart rate is elevated and HRV is suppressed, that is useful data. But pairing it with RPE tells you whether the fatigue is manageable or a sign to adjust.

Training smart means understanding both the numbers and the feeling.

This Applies Beyond Endurance Training

Whether you are racing motocross, training for a marathon, lifting weights, or balancing hybrid performance, RPE helps with:

• Autoregulation

• Load selection

• Preventing overtraining

• Improving race execution

• Long-term consistency

The best athletes do not rely on a single metric. They interpret trends. They compare heart rate data with perceived effort. They make adjustments based on context.

The Real Performance Advantage

Heart rate vs RPE training is not a competition.

It is a partnership.

Heart rate gives you objective data.
RPE gives you internal awareness.

When you learn to combine both, you stop guessing.

And that is where real performance gains compound.

If you are serious about endurance training, strength progression, and sustainable performance, stop letting one metric tell the whole story.

Pair heart rate with RPE and level up 💪