The concepts of Reps In Reserve (RIR) and Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) are incredibly helpful. Despite this, they are often poorly understood and poorly utilised in the health and fitness world.
Understanding what RIR and RPE are, and how to use them, does actually clear up so many misunderstandings and general questions about resistance training. So, the goal of this article is to really dig into these concepts and show you how you can use them in your own training.
To really dig into this topic, I am going to assume that you already understand why exercise is important, the goals of exercise, the types of exercise we have available to us, and you have a rough idea of the general exercise guidelines. It would also be helpful if you had a good understanding of why and how we use resistance training to build muscle and strength. I am also going to assume that if you intend to use this information to make better exercise programs, you have already spent some time thinking about your exercise selection and have ensured it is appropriate for your goals. Finally, if you haven’t already, it would be incredibly helpful to read our article on understanding reps, as this does cover a lot of stuff around reps that will allow you to better understand and utilise the information in this article.
You can also visit our exercise hub for more content on exercise.
Before we get stuck in, I would just like to remind you that we offer comprehensive online coaching. So if you need help with your own exercise program or nutrition, don’t hesitate to reach out. If you are a coach (or aspiring coach) and want to learn how to coach nutrition, then consider signing up to our Nutrition Coach Certification course. We do also have an exercise program design course in the works, if you are a coach who wants to learn more about effective program design and how to coach it. We do have other courses available too.
Now, with all that out of the way, we can actually get stuck into RIR and RPE.
Table of Contents
- 1 RIR and RPE
- 2 Do You Need To Train To Failure?
- 3 Using RIR/RPE
- 3.1 Relative Intensity and Load Prescription (with Rep Target)
- 3.2 Relative Intensity and Load Prescription (without Reps Target or with Rep Range)
- 3.3 Relative Intensity and Program Progression – with Increasing Relative Intensity
- 3.4 Relative Intensity and Program Progression – with Fixed Relative Intensity
- 4 RIR/RPE Conclusion
RIR and RPE
I think most people would agree that there is a difference between performing a set of 8 reps on squats to complete failure and performing a set of 8 reps on squats that was 5 reps from failure.
The experience of both of these sets is completely different, the adaptations each of these sets produces is likely to be different and the overall fatigue generated from each of these sets is different.
Having intensity guidelines in the form of RIR or RPE allows you to be specific in how you train. You may argue that you should just train to failure on everything, but this isn’t generally associated with the best long term results, and it can actually lead to worse results. Furthermore, going to failure can also be more accurately prescribed by using RIR or RPE.
Having intensity guidelines also gives you more autonomy in your training, compared to set targets such as percentages or specific weights. By selecting and adjusting the loads that you use based on your perceived effort, or more specifically, the perceived number of reps remaining, you essentially coach yourself by managing your efforts, limiting fatigue, and adapting your program based on your abilities on that specific day. We will talk about autoregulation in a future article, and RIR/RPE is incredibly helpful in appropriate autoregulation in training.
So what exactly is RIR/RPE?
Most people are familiar with the concept of rating something out of 10, depending on how hard it felt. You could rate an exam you did out of 10, with 10 being incredibly hard and 1 being incredibly easy. The same holds true for resistance training. You can rate how hard you felt a given set was out of 10.
With the rating of the exam, you are also likely familiar with the concept that different people will rate the difficulty of the exam differently, based on their previous study efforts and how well prepared they felt on a given day. You may have found an exam to be a 8/10 difficulty, while your friend who was more diligent in studying consistently in the preceding months may have found it to be more like a 3/10 difficulty.
Similarly, with training, the previous weeks/months/years of training allow you to be more prepared for the set. If you have been diligently training for a long period of time, you are more than likely going to find heavy weights less effortful compared to someone who hasn’t been as diligent in their training.
But you must also factor in day to day fluctuations, and everything else that is going on in someone’s life to really be able to better gauge how difficult something is. With the exam, your friend may be much better prepared than you, and would normally find that particular exam to be a 3/10 difficulty compared to your 8/10 difficulty. However, if they had been sick, their sleep had been very poor, or they had a lot of life stress going on the previous days to the exam, they may rate that exam as being an 8 or 9 out of 10.
Similarly, with someone’s training, what may normally be a weight that they handle with a low level of effort, if there is a lot of other stress going on in their life or they aren’t as recovered as much as they usually are, the weight may suddenly feel incredibly challenging.
While the exam has to stay the same, and you have to just do what you can do on a given day, with resistance training, you can actually modify how heavy the weight is, based on your abilities on a given day. This is where the intensity guidelines of RIR or RPE really come into their own. They let you adjust the objective challenge based on your subjective perceived challenge.
RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion)
RPE is a subjective scale used to measure the intensity of an exercise based on how hard you feel you are working. It reflects the effort, strain, discomfort, and fatigue experienced during the activity.
Typically, the RPE scale ranges from 1 to 10 (although it can range from 6 to 20 in the case of the Borg scale). The 1-10 scale is roughly as follows:
- 1-2: Very light effort
- 3-4: Light effort
- 5-6: Moderate effort
- 7-8: Hard effort
- 9: Very hard effort
- 10: Maximum effort
As described above, in practice, using the scale is quite intuitive. If you perform a set of an exercise, you can rate how hard that set feels. If you did 100kg by 10 reps on a set of squats, you could simply rate that out of 10 in terms of how difficult it felt to do. If it was close to your 10 rep maximum for squats, you may rate it as a 9/10 or perhaps even a 10/10. If that set was well below your max of 120kg for 10 reps, you might only rate it as something like a 4/10 or maybe a 5/10.
So RPE can be used to gauge how hard you are working on any given set. However, it can also be used to better select the load you need to lift, to get the adaptations you desire.
While there are situations where you may want to only perform your sets at an RPE of 4 or 5, in general, if your goals are strength or muscle mass gain, you are going to need to train with a little bit more effort. The vast majority of your productive training is going to be done between RPE of 6 to 9.
As such, you would go into the workout with some sort of RPE guidelines, and this will allow you to pick a much better weight for that set of squats. If your 10 rep max on squats is 120kg, and you have a target of RPE 8, you will then have to use something around 110-115kg for your sets of 10.
RPE can be incredibly useful in both assessing how hard a given set was, and also ensuring you select the right weights for your sets to ensure you are actually targeting the adaptations you desire.
It also allows you to account for fatigue and poor recovery, as the weight you use for your RPE 8 target may be different depending on how well-recovered or prepared you are on a given day.
If you just go in and arbitrarily try to lift more than you did last week, you may be vastly under-stimulating or vastly over-stimulating the system. If you are incredibly well recovered, you may actually be able to do more than you thought you would be able to do. Conversely, if stress has been high and sleep has been poor, you may not even be able to do what you did the previous week.
Having an RPE target allows you to better account for this. On the days you are well recovered, you will be able to lift a heavier weight for a given RPE, and on the days you feel under-prepared, you will be able to lift a much lighter weight for that RPE. The RPE stays constant, but the weight used can differ. However, the level of stimulus is more closely matched to what you are capable of.
RIR (Reps in Reserve)
Very similar to RPE is the concept of Reps in Reserve (RIR). While RPE is more familiar in terms of how you would gauge how difficult something is by scoring it out of 10, RIR allows you to be more precise in gauging your exact proximity to failure.
RIR is effectively an estimate of how many more reps you could perform before reaching failure (the point where you can no longer perform the exercise with proper form).
RIR is generally, expressed as a number indicating the reps you have left in the tank after completing a set. For example:
- 0 RIR: No more reps could be performed (complete failure).
- 1 RIR: One more rep could be performed.
- 2 RIR: Two more reps could be performed.
- 3 RIR: Three more reps could be performed.
- 4 RIR: Four more reps could be performed.
- 5 RIR: Five more reps could be performed.
RPE and RIR can be roughly mapped onto each other, which is quite helpful.
Both RPE and RIR have their own advantages and disadvantages. There are subtle differences between the two, but ultimately, it doesn’t actually matter that much. We tend to favour RIR when discussing resistance training, whereas we tend to use RPE when discussing cardio. They each have their place.
The vast majority of your productive training is going to be done between RPE 6 to 9 or RIR 1 to 4. The unfortunate thing is that it can be tricky to actually know what a 10 out of 10 level of effort (RPE 10 or RIR 0) feels like, unless you have actually performed a 10 out of 10 level of effort at least once in your life.
You have to have actually tasted training to failure, to be able to accurately use RPE or RIR.
This is generally the biggest concern and using RPE/RIR. Many coaches and trainees are concerned that using RIR/RPE would lead to trainees “slacking” in the gym, as a result of being unable to tell how far they are from the point of failure. This is a valid point, and we do see greater discrepancies in perceived RIR/RPE in beginner trainees versus more advanced trainees.
However, this isn’t solved by not tracking RIR/RPE. Even when people supposedly “train to failure” on every set, they are still using RIR/RPE, they are just training to a 0 RIR (RPE10). Their performance is still impacted by all the same variables, and they are just using a “hard end point” of failure to determine how many reps they have left in the tank.
Also, training to failure is a skill. Most beginner trainees are just as bad at training to failure as they are at gauging RIR/RPE. Most beginners who “train to failure” are often still not actually training to failure (0 RIR), and they very often still have a few reps left in the tank. So they still need to learn to get better at accurately assessing RIR/RPE, and simply saying “just train to failure” doesn’t help them do this.
Using Percentages To Guide Intensity
Generally, the reason percentages are so popular is because they seem to be more scientific, and traditionally, these types of programs have been used in conjunction with performance-enhancing drugs. With the use of performance-enhancing drugs, you have another variable to play with which allows you to more closely follow a specific percentage-based progression model, as you can simply increase the drug load if you aren’t quite able to follow the prescribed rate of progress.
Now, this isn’t to say we never use percentages to help with load selection. Understanding how different rep ranges relate back to your theoretical 1 rep max is helpful. We discussed this in our article about understanding reps, so I won’t rehash that discussion here.
Do You Need To Train To Failure?
As this does get asked quite a lot, we need to address it. The reality is, you don’t actually need to reach failure to see results. In general, you only need to be within ~5 reps of failure consistently to see results.
Reaching failure is far less important than people make it out to be, and you would be better served by focusing on absolutely perfecting your reps, rather than chasing failure. Of course, you will still have to train hard to see results, but anyone who has actually done a true RIR 3 set will tell you that it is still hard.
The most common issue here is that most people think they have reached failure, when in reality, they are usually 2-5 reps from failure. So the vast majority of people who say training to failure is the only way, well, they are usually only training 2-5 reps from failure anyway.
You very often see elite level bodybuilders who claim to always train to failure, yet when they get coached or are training with someone, they somehow always manage to eke out an extra few reps in the session. Now, this can be explained by them being more hyped up on the day (training partners can be great for this), but given training to failure elicits substantial physical and mental stress on the individual, the more likely answer is that they are usually training sub-maximally. So in general, we suggest that you should be training 1-5 reps shy of complete failure.
Generally, most people consider the last ~5 reps of a set (to failure) to be the most effective reps. These are (naturally enough) often called “effective reps”. There are some flaws to this thinking, but it is conceptually a really handy way of thinking about training. By going to failure on a set, you collect all 5 effective reps.
However, you also likely limit your ability to collect 5 effective reps on the next set at that same weight. This is because the closer you go to failure, the more fatigue you generate. Do this across an entire workout, and an entire program, and you may actually end up with less accumulated effective reps than someone who stayed a few reps shy of failure.
Consider you do a set of 8 to failure, on your next set you might get 6 reps, and on the next set, you might get 5 reps. If we take it that the first set had 5 effective reps at a given weight, the subsequent set only got 3, and the final set only got 2. So for this exercise, by going to failure, you get a total of 10 effective reps (5+3+2=10).
Now you may be thinking “I am able to get all sets with 8 reps, even when I train to failure”, and I, unfortunately, have to be the one to tell you that you simply aren’t training to failure if you are doing this.
Unless you are taking extremely long breaks in between your sets, are extremely cardiovascularly fit, are well slept and well fuelled, you are going to see a drop off in performance by training to failure. If you aren’t seeing a drop off in performance, you likely aren’t actually training to failure, and in my coaching experience, people who say that they don’t see a drop off in performance training to failure, usually have ~3 reps still in the tank.
Now consider you do 3 sets of 8 with 2 reps in reserve. Doing this means you get all 3 sets of 8 (although that last set may feel closer to 1 RIR, as fatigue accumulates across the sets), and thus you get 9 effective reps (3+3+3=9).
So surely it is better to go to failure then? You get more effective reps this way, even if you do see a drop off in performance. However, by going to failure you also generate more fatigue, that also impacts your ability to perform subsequent exercises, and even subsequent workouts.
So with the going to failure option, you may get more effective reps on the first exercise, but you limit your performance on subsequent exercises (and potentially subsequent training sessions). As a result, you end up getting less total effective reps across an entire workout (and training program).
Practically speaking, it is also much harder to actually train most exercises to failure. It is easy enough to train an exercise to failure if it is relatively fixed, and there isn’t much room for error (e.g. a quad extension). However, training to failure on a more complex movement (e.g. squats) is just impractical. You likely just become limited by practical concerns, rather than muscular reasons when you train to failure on certain, more complex exercises.
By going to failure, you also likely increase your risk of injury. The potential for injury occurring as you eke out the last few reps of a heavy squat is much higher than staying 2-3 reps shy of failure. So by going to failure, you not only limit your overall effective reps, you also potentially put yourself out of training for a longer period of time.
Ultimately, training with a few reps in the tank does actually give you better progress, as you can do it for longer across time, and you can manage fatigue much better.
Using RIR/RPE
You would be better off to think of exercise as training rather than testing. Most beginners go into the gym with the mindset of testing (i.e. they test their abilities and see what they can do that day), whereas intermediate to advanced trainees go in with the mindset of actually training to improve. Just as any other athlete wouldn’t just go into a training session and push themselves to their absolute limits (e.g. you don’t see sprinters trying to run as fast as humanly possible every training session), neither should gym goers.
“The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long.”
Using RIR/RPE also allows you to more easily modify training based on how ready you are to train hard that day. If you are simply following a fixed progression model (we will discuss progression models in a future article) where you try to add a predetermined amount of weight each week or even try to just hit a certain amount of reps at a given weight each week, you run the risk of both under- and over-training in any given session. Some sessions you may find the progression to be too easy, while in other sessions you may find it is too aggressive.
You see, life is not linear and robotic. There are going to be days where you are well rested, stress is low and you are well fuelled. On these days, you are likely going to be able to push training harder. Similarly, there are going to be days where you are under-slept, stressed out, and poorly fuelled. On these days, you will likely need to take training easier.
By using RIR/RPE, you have a much easier method of regulating the intensity of the training based on your abilities. This is because RIR/RPE allow you to autoregulate your training to a much higher degree than other training models. We will discuss autoregulation in more depth later on, but simply put, autoregulation refers to the practice of adjusting training variables, based on individual responses to training stimuli and the daily fluctuations in readiness or performance. Rather than strict adherence to predetermined sets, reps, or weights, autoregulation allows for more flexibility and responsiveness within a training session to optimise performance, progression, and recovery.
With RIR/RPE, you have much more flexibility in the way you elicit the desired adaptations. If you know how close to failure you need to be to achieve the response you want, you can be more flexible in the weights, reps and number of sets you use to get that response. If you are feeling good, you can use heavier weights, whereas if you are feeling fatigued, you can use lighter weights, all while still staying within your RIR/RPE target. There is more to this, but we will discuss it later on.
However, what I do want to illustrate right now is the various ways you can more practically use RIR/RPE. I know that some people are simply not familiar with the concept of RIR/RPE, and the fitness industry does generally still leave people thinking that if they aren’t training to failure, they aren’t training. So it can be helpful to see how RIR/RPE can be used in a more practical setting.
Relative Intensity and Load Prescription (with Rep Target)
You could use a load range (e.g. 100kg ± 5kg) and then specify load selection by gauging it against the RIR target. This is essentially the foundation of using RIR: you use it to guide the loads that are used. Most programs that use RIR will use it in this way. For example: 4 x 3 @ 2 RIR. That’s generally how you will see it applied, as this allows you to specify the intensity (sets of 3 at your 5RM, more likely to drive strength adaptations), while still ensuring fatigue is being managed (i.e. not going to failure).
Relative Intensity and Load Prescription (without Reps Target or with Rep Range)
Although it may not be what you are used to, you could write a training program without a specific repetition target. Instead, you could use a relative intensity guideline to give a defined point at which the set ends.
To put this into practice, you could suggest performing a certain load (e.g. 100kg) at 2 RIR. You could then simply approach each of your sets with the intent of working to the point where you feel you have no more than 2 RIR. This may be the same number of reps on each set, or it could vary.
Another way you could do this would be to have a broad range (e.g. 12-20) and an RIR cut-off, without any recommended load selection. This is especially useful for more isolation-type exercises in higher repetition ranges, as people generally don’t have the same mental tie to specific loads on those exercises and are more open to adjusting their loads based on the relative intensity. For example, you could program 12-20 reps at 1-2 RIR, which can then drive subsequent load selection.
Relative Intensity and Program Progression – with Increasing Relative Intensity
If you use the reps in reserve (RIR) method of quantifying relative intensity, then you could progress that relative intensity as you move through a certain phase of programming. For example, you could have an 8 week block of training where you increase your effort weekly, so that RIR decreases from RIR 3 on all sets on week 1 to RIR 1 on all sets on week 8.
This could then guide either the load increases you make each week OR the rep target increases that you make. The good thing about using RIR to guide your progression is that it is more specific to your performance on the day than predetermined load increases. For example, if on week 6, you are due to work with 2 RIR on all sets, but you actually feel a little fatigued on that day, so that lighter weights than normal are leaving you with 2 RIR, then you can simply accept that for what it is and recognise that that is the level of training stress that will align with the 2 RIR training stress you had planned. The load may be different and may not have progressed, but your effort is still where it is supposed to be, as opposed to going ahead with increasing the load anyway and further increasing the amount of fatigue you accumulate that week.
Relative Intensity and Program Progression – with Fixed Relative Intensity
In this case, you can use the RIR guidelines to guide the way in which you choose loads or repetitions, much like you would if you were increasing relative intensity. In a fixed relative intensity model, you may look to have a consistent level of effort each week, which is often something that is useful for beginners, who can progress pretty quickly and hence a small increase in load may be in line with their actual rate of progress and therefore, they may not see a decrease in RIR from week to week with small increases. So, essentially, if someone was following a linear progression programme, where their goal is to increase the load on the bar weekly by X kg, then they could make the load increase with that fixed RIR in mind and potentially make a smaller / larger load increase if the RIR target is in line with them doing so.
There are other ways you can use RIR/RPE, but hopefully, these have given you some ideas and a better understanding of how to use RIR/RPE. We have mentioned sets a number of times in this article, however, before we can discuss that concept, we need to round out the discussion of individual reps by discussing rep tempo.
So far in this article series, we have discussed what rep ranges do what, how heavy you need to train, and how close to failure you need to train (the article you just read). However, there is clearly a difference between a rep that takes 10 seconds to complete and a rep that takes 1 second to complete. As a result, we need to discuss rep tempo and the concept of time under tension (TUT) to really round out our discussion and understanding of reps, so we will cover tempo in the next article in this series.
RIR/RPE Conclusion
RIR and RPE are incredibly valuable tools in a resistance training program. Incorporating RIR and RPE into your resistance training routine allows you to better personalise your training, and provide a more appropriate stimulus for your given readiness. These tools allow you to tailor your training intensity to your current physical and mental state, facilitating optimal progress.
You don’t always have to train to failure to see results. In fact, keeping a few reps in the tank may actually allow you to see better results. For most people, the vast majority of your productive training is going to be done between RPE 6 to 9 or RIR 1 to 4. Keeping a few reps in the tank actually allows you to accumulate more effective reps across a workout and program, while also allowing you to better recover from training.
As with everything, there is always more to learn, and we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface with all this stuff. However, if you are interested in staying up to date with all our content, we recommend subscribing to our newsletter and bookmarking our free content page. We do have a lot of content on how to design your own exercise program on our exercise hub.
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We also recommend reading our foundational nutrition article, along with our foundational articles on sleep and stress management, if you really want to learn more about how to optimise your lifestyle. If you want even more free information on exercise, you can follow us on Instagram, YouTube or listen to the podcast, where we discuss all the little intricacies of exercise.
Finally, if you want to learn how to coach nutrition, then consider our Nutrition Coach Certification course. We do also have an exercise program design course in the works, if you are a coach who wants to learn more about effective program design and how to coach it. We do have other courses available too. If you don’t understand something, or you just need clarification, you can always reach out to us on Instagram or via email.
The previous article in this series is about Understanding Reps and the next article in this series is about Rep Tempo and Time Under Tension, if you are interested in continuing to learn about exercise program design. You can also go to our exercise hub to find more exercise content.
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Paddy Farrell
Hey, I'm Paddy!
I am a coach who loves to help people master their health and fitness. I am a personal trainer, strength and conditioning coach, and I have a degree in Biochemistry and Biomolecular Science. I have been coaching people for over 10 years now.
When I grew up, you couldn't find great health and fitness information, and you still can't really. So my content aims to solve that!
I enjoy training in the gym, doing martial arts and hiking in the mountains (around Europe, mainly). I am also an avid reader of history, politics and science. When I am not in the mountains, exercising or reading, you will likely find me in a museum.
