USING RATING OF PERCEIVED EXERTION TO REPRODUCE BLOOD LACTATE LEVELS DURING A CONTINUOUS EXERCISE BOUT OF VARYING INTENSITIES

1214 The purpose of this study was to investigate whether blood lactate concentrations (BLCs) could be reproduced corresponding to previously measured BLCs by using Borg's rate of perceived exertion (RPE) scale to determine exercise intensity at three different levels during a single 30 min exercise bout. Twelve subjects (4 M, 8 F; age: 26.5 ± 3.7 yr; Ht: 168.9 ± 8.3 cm; Wt: 68.2 ± 14.1 kg) completed an RPE estimation trial (a 3 min stage incremental treadmill protocol to volitional fatigue), practiced running at the workloads corresponding to their RPEs of 11, 14, and 16, and, one week after the practice run, completed the production trial (a continuous self-selected intensity run for 10 min at each RPE target value). Although the absolute BLCs at each RPE were higher than anticipated, dependent t-tests indicated that there was no significant difference in BLC, VO2, or HR between the two trials. (Table)TableThe results demonstrate that Borg's RPE scale can be used for self-regulated production of previously determined BLC levels and that intensity can be changed during a single bout of exercise to reflect different BLCs. These findings suggest that RPE may be used for exercise prescription when constant monitoring of BLC is neither desirable nor possible if individual BLC-RPE relationships have been pre-determined.