Perceived Exertion Research in the 21 St Century : Developments , Reflections and Questions for the Future

The ratings of perceived exertion are a widely accepted measure of quantifying, monitoring and regulating exercise intensity. A critical review of the perceived exertion literature since 2000 provides a useful insight into the concepts and themes that have featured prominently in the literature. In this regard, five main themes of enquiry concerning perceived exertion have emerged. These include child-specific rating scales, pictorial scales for adults, self-regulation and the efficacy of using the RPE for predicting maximal oxygen uptake, observations that the RPE scales with time or distance remaining in openand closed-loop exercise tasks, and the influence of carbohydrate and caffeine ingestion on the ratings of perceived exertion. We provide a critical review of these developments and reflect on their relative contributions to knowledge, their potential practical applications and the questions which remain for future research on perceived exertion in adults and children.