Two sets of 80 kg for 8. One felt like you had four more in you. The other took everything. The bar says they were the same set. RPE is how you tell NOYU they were not.
What the number means
RPE stands for rating of perceived exertion, and in strength training it has settled on a scale from 6 to 10 anchored to repetitions in reserve. A 10 means you could not have done another repetition. A 9 means one more was there. An 8 means two, a 7 means three, and a 6 means four or more.
Half steps sit between them for when you are torn. A 9.5 means you might have managed one more, and you would not have bet on it.
The scale starts at 6 because anything easier is not a working set. If you had five or more repetitions in reserve, the set was a warm-up or a technique drill, and NOYU has a set type for that instead.
Why it is worth rating
Weight and repetitions describe what you lifted. They say nothing about what it cost. The same 80 kg for 8 is a comfortable working set at RPE 7 and a grinding maximum at RPE 10, and the difference is the most useful thing to know when you plan next week.
Rating each set is also how you learn your own strength on the day. Some days the bar moves and some days it does not, for reasons that show up in your sleep and Readiness before they show up in the gym. A set that felt like a 9 at a weight that was an 8 last week is information, and it is information the number of repetitions alone cannot give you.
The catch is that it takes practice. Most people rate sets too low when they start, because stopping three repetitions short of failure feels harder than it is until you have gone to failure a few times and learned what that costs. Expect your early ratings to be rough and your later ones to be sharp.
Set effort and session effort
NOYU records effort at two levels.
Set RPE is per set, on the 6 to 10 scale above. Turn it on with Track RPE in your strength settings, or Show RPE in a session, and an RPE column appears beside your sets. It is off by default because it is a habit to build, not a box to fill.
Session effort is one whole number from 1 to 10 for the workout as a whole, from Very easy to Max effort. You can add it to any activity, including runs and rides from your watch, under Effort and notes on the activity page.
What NOYU does with it
Session effort is part of what NOYU sees when it looks at your training week, alongside sets, repetitions and how long you trained. A run that your watch scored as easy and you rated as a 9 is a mismatch worth talking about.
Set RPE is stored with each set, so it travels with the history NOYU compares you against. Progress on an exercise is judged from your working sets and repetitions. RPE is the context for whether that progress came easily.
