Make RPE great again
Is it about censorship ? Is it about Homecoming ? Is it about endurance Sport ? Is it about a feeling ? Is it about decision making and Neuroscience ? Is it about a dionysian rush? Simple! All of it!
Bad denglish, crappy sentence structure, hey, whoever censors us has to expect publication at Substack. Of course, any references to an MMOPG are negated. It's as if Klaus Kinski is on stage again and instead of talking about the historical person of the guy from Nazareth, he's very friendly, tells us something about heart rates and feelings during endurance sports. We live in a crazy age. Yes, the end of Nietzsche's time is ringing in. And unnoticed through the back door, censorship is taking place just as it was done 80 years ago with the books of Thomas Mann. We hope Substack is far from any censorship. Censorship is the opposite of democracy. Censorship goes hand in hand with intolerance and Hitler's henchmen. We actually do mean in general. Not our special situation. I want to see something conspicuous.
Because I do not want to see something conspicuous. Sticky Bottle. Free Will ? An artist knows no censorship. But he knows how to express himself, he knows how to provoke and he knows how to assert himself in a world that seems to be more and more subordinated to the censorship of political correctness. This is not at all about political issues. Nor really about religious gods, even if we consciously flirt with it or them. It is, like the color dispute, about the heart, about the great feeling of the whole. About the one spiritual experience. To share this experience. To report what we have experienced, that is what a voyager does when he returns home, may he be a beggar. And if he is a beggar. So we have learned that it is not only the beggar's fault if he loses his nerve. It is also those who may not listen to him because he is only the beggar. One who returns home has a story to tell. We tell the story here. On Substack. Elsewhere we have already been censored. I still want to see something conspicious. This small part that we didn't want to publish here. But now we will do so with the little intermezzo:
Make RPE great again !
A voyager came home, it became a living thing, it has a story to tell.
!!!warning - forces of the underworld at work!!!
This is about 3 “Metrics” in endurance Sport. Power, heartrate and RPE. What is RPE? Rating of Perceived Exertion is how hard your effort felt during the workout.
Power.
Power can be measured with powermeters, there are several methods. We do not want you to encumber with detail. Power can be regarded as a performance. In most cases it is displayed as watts, so joule/s. This performance is a quite good indicator for the training load.
Heart rate.
The loaded System,the body, starts to response, it is stressed. This stress has numerous influences in our Body. One is an elevation of the heart rate. So heart rate in a stressed Individual, no matter if it is severe physical stress, it also can be stressed psychological, this heart rate should be above resting heart rate, it shows the physiological response to an intended stress - this is if it is a workout, not a trauma. To measure the heart rate during exercise is one of the best methods to monitor this stress, it is only logic to do so and in most cases it is a quite cheap method, it is so easy to wear a heart rate strap - we do not recommend optical methods, because during a workout they tend to be so inaccurate.
There are different “philosophical” concepts of heart rate zones, training volume/intensity distribution in an endurance sport. We love the polarized approach. The most important things to know are the threshold ranges. Yes. Ranges. It is and will never be a specific number. It is getting slowly wibbly wobbly, sorry, all striving for the best “akkuratesse”, you are not your FTP, it is not a static number, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart, everything is connected. These two ranges, first LT1, second LT2 can be determined by different approaches, we just mention one easy way for each range. It is always a range, remember that! Nonetheless one gets a number. The Talk Test is for the first, LT1. The talk test can be defined as the ability of an individual to maintain a conversation during exercise. In practice, to roughly determine LT1, because it is always a range, you can sing a nursery rhyme like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, repeat it with increasing workout intensity, the moment you can't sing anymore without faltering, that's about LT1.
LT2. Lets do a more practical test. Say run 30min or 10k and try to hold a good pace, feeling hard in the middle, feeling all out in the last minute- for there should be something left in the tank at the end, the start should feel not too hard. To be in the middle in the beginning. This is, as many have already guessed, some kind of a FTP test. The average heart rate should be roughly mark LT2. This also will be the threshold heart rate. We voluntarily described it that way. With feelings. Because this is what it is about. Very short description of power. A much longer description of heart rate. And we are not ready with heart rate. When it comes to heart rate - we should not forget one of the most brilliant methods to use. It is called MAF Method. Which means maximal aerobic function by Maffetone. Heartrate is just one part of it. Nutrition and other essential Life equations are also part of it. It is a concept. It is a description. It also offers a way for a heart rate range. Again it is a range despite one gets a precise number. This number should also roughly be at the LT1 heart rate range. For further information of this incredibly advanced method just search MAF method. It is a brilliant way to change one's Life into a more healthy attitude. Maximum aerobic function.
Now in detail to RPE? RPE in its short form is just a number. A simple number from 1-10. So simple. It is like mentioned above about how hard an exercise felt. Preferably an endurance workout. So the range of the possible attainable numbers are from 1 very easy to 10= felt maximum strenuous, all out. You ask for a ranking of the perceived exertion, how hard it felt. And you want a number. This is so interesting. By all love to akkuratesse, to be precise, to nail it down- look where you are - in the wibbly wobbly subjective realm of feeling. If you are a man this is the time for you to start dressing like a woman. Being a little bit possessed ? We love these jokes. How we handle this. The headline is “make RPE great again”. It is like a prompt of an old man - if he is wise or not…not part of our discussion. Before there were all the precise metrics. What does any athlete have to monitor, to structure training, anything was done by feeling - and experience, of course, they were a team. Sceptical thinking is allowed - did we create that monster in my brain or is the monster just raised ? RPE is subjective. It is not an objective metric like power and heart rate. It is the black sheep in those 3 of pwr, hr and RPE. It is the Sith Empress. So. We want to make it great again. We already did. Because we are a team. In a world in which we only believe what we can see, in which mankind want to walk with AI hand in hand to strive for the absolute, in the most stupidly thinking mankind and its delusion to evolve to a weltgeist to ever reach this absolute - with science and an optimistic perspective into the future to be able to have a 100% control of life AND death ? It is this arrogance and ignorance to believe in such nonsense. From the objective to the ridiculous. I promised. It will get more and more wibbly wobbly. The rollercoaster ride just began. Ride on. From a simple single serving number from 1-10 to an ancient approach. What approach ? To communicate with unconsciousness. From a feeling, a rated or ranked feeling with a sterile number to the most spiritual experience. Experience what ? Whom ? Have a feeling ! This uncertain thing. RPE. We made it great again. Bigger than just a stupid number. We let it rise. To the sith empress. Good and evil. Heart rate is good. Is RPE evil ? Is it possibly dangerous to use RPE? You will serve a dark Queen. Will she look like Cate ? For all will love her and despair.
“What you will see, if you leave the Mirror free to work, I cannot tell. For it shows things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be. But which is it that he sees, even the wisest cannot always tell. Do you wish to look?”
That sounds familiar. It became a living thing. All the objective things in which relativity, with its seemingly tangible, seemingly precise numbers, will one day come to an end. One day this illusion of imperfect precision and this faulty perfection in time and space will have to bow to its creator. It is a simple source. The Alpha and the Omega. Oh, sorry, it's not Cate. It's not the one with the red crown. But the latter became a big deal in the collective unconscious. It's still there. It's all things that are, that will be, and that have been. An all-encompassing force. That's right. Some people vomit when they use a roller coaster. Fortunately, you can just stop reading. Or continue. And it is still not a woman in a jersey. A nice fantasy is a nice fantasy. Some say creativity is more located in the right hemisphere. This is not precise. It is a togetherness.
The loopings are done. Some had to vomit. We do not say sorry. You should not have entered our realm. There was a warning. You could have stopped reading. It is not a rollercoaster. Back to the maximum aerobic function method. We love that term. We love zone 2. We love a low intensity workout. We also do not like the “no pain no gain” motto. But. Is it the one who has the high ground in our equation who is a little bit pissed off ? He, who has the low ground knows how to watch on a brain in a simple cCT or cMRT view mode. Dualism. There we are. The good and the evil. System 2 vs. System 1. It is ok. We love all approaches to create a dualistic worldview. So let's have a look at this. Recovery for the brain on a small uphill effort for the rollercoaster. With this interesting image of a brain. Just look at this first picture we show you here from a study about decision making. If you think System 1 refers to the left side of the brain vs. system 2 to the right. Sorry. Wrong. cCT/cMRT viewmode reveals a crossover. The patient's perspective. This is what we first saw - System 1, red lightsaber, evil like a sith= the right hemisphere. System 2, green lightsaber, good, the yedi, the left hemisphere. To distinguish between the left and right brain. To distinguish between System 2 and System 1.
Let's invite a friend. His name is Friedrich.
We: Hello Friedrich, where are you ?
Friedrich: Hey it is a hot summer day, this must be New York, fascinating, how it developed into Metropole. It is so hot, I walked through the central park, didn’t drink anything and I have this feeling in my stomach. I am hungry and thirsty.
We: Welcome into the 21st century. We still can not see any Übermensch, Friedrich, since Capitalism made humanity great again [really?], so it is your luck to buy anything you want right at every corner.
Friedrich: Since this is a fantasy, here, in which anything is possible, I want to invite my favourite god.
Dionysos: Here I am, at your service, my friend Friedrich. But you must know, I do not show up alone, we are talking about dualism, so Apollo my opposite is also part of the game.
Apollo: Dear friends, what an interesting gathering. Friedrich, I know you have a problem. Dionysos already senses your fast feeling of a big thirst with the lust for sugar.
Dionysos: What you let inside your brain will affect the feelings I give you. With your eyes I saw this beautiful coke commercial. Sunshine, hot weather, a charming and attractive woman grabbing this cold as an ice looking coke bottle, refreshment, the kick, the rush, hey this is me ? Isn’t it ? Not wine. It is this coke at this moment. The sugar rush. There at the corner, a shop, for sure with coke bottles in a refrigerator. Come on Friedrich ! Let’s buy that coke and have our sugar-coffeine-coke-refreshment rush!
Apollo: Wait! What does our friend Arthur say about the charming or attractive ?
Arthur: I love to show up by quoting myself “Opposites throw light upon each other, and therefore the remark may be in place here, that the proper opposite of the sublime is something which would not at the first glance be recognised, as such: the charming or attractive. That which excites the will by presenting to it directly its fulfilment, its satisfaction. The charming or attractive draws the beholder away from the pure contemplation, it necessarily excites this will, by objects which directly appeal to it, and thus he no longer remains pure subject of knowing, but becomes the needy and dependent subject of will.”
Apollo: brilliant, Arthur, so please Friedrich, think about it. Think twice. We are all friends here. I can understand your thirst. Let's take a bottle of sparkling apple juice, go to your hotel and have a healthy lunch.
Friedrich: sounds like a deal. Dionysos my beloved god, is this enough sugar rush for you ?
Dionysos: If my kind divine bro Apollo makes this proposal, I think we can enjoy the bottle of sparkling apple juice first, and then have a healthy lunch.
Friedrich: We made a decision, together as a team. Nice. Let’s call this “connectome”.
This little conversation is an example of decision-making that takes a middle course, that is, there is no extreme and no clear distinction between left and right, good and evil, system 2 and system 1. This is because this picture with the two hemispheres is already outdated and it lacks any scientific basis to continue working with such old concepts.
Make RPE great again. As a team. In the form of a connectome of the simple perspective. Balancing is the key. Feeling is an essential part of life. Any form of trying to neglect it will only lead to more damage in the future. Totalitarian systems that rise and fall to ruin.
Or just boring training that focuses only on numbers instead of feeling.
Since we still live in the "Nietzsche Zeitalter" [we do it indeed!]- we unfortunately do not understand him at all what he really meant, so we misinterpret his philosophy, so he foresaw many bad things (like the terrible 3rd Reich), because if you like to put up with Dionysus (the guy with the rush), you inevitably invite Apollo (the guy with the visions). We don't want to encumber you with details here.
Make RPE great again !
maybe to be continued, maybe to be edited, maybe to be deleted.