***This content comes from the Joint Pain Programme Journal by Nuffield Health. As a Rehab Specialist running this program, I’m excited to share these helpful insights with you all.
Recording how hard you feel your body is working when exercising will help to monitor and determine your exercise progression throughout the program.
When exercising, it’s important to monitor your intensity to make sure you’re working at a pace that is challenging enough to help you reach your goals, but not so hard that you adversely affect your recovery.
While participating in exercise during both of your scheduled exercise sessions per week, it is important to keep a record of your perception of effort and how the exercise impacts your health.
This perception of effort should take into consideration your breathing and muscular fatigue.
The Nuffield Health Scale of Effort
The Nuffield Health Scale of Effort enables you to rate how you are feeling when exercising.
The table (above) demonstrates how this scale works. It starts at number 0, where you are not using any effort and your breathing is causing you no difficulty at all, and progresses through to number 10, where your breathing difficulty is extremely hard and effort is at maximum.
Adapted from the work of Professor Patrick Doherty, University of York.
How to Complete Your Effort Scale
It is important to keep a diary of your effort ratings to monitor your fitness progression. As you become fitter, the same activity will become easier, and your effort rating will decrease.
Then you’ll know it’s time to increase your effort. Record a weekly effort score for each of your exercise sessions throughout the program. Here are a few tips to help you fill in this record:
• Record the highest score you experienced during this session, i.e., if during the warm-up you scored 4, but during a particular exercise, you scored 5, record 5 in this record.
• Feel free to use the space to make a note next to the score of what particular exercise/activity caused you to peak at that score.
• These scores will help you determine how to progress your exercises and improve your fitness, so try to be as accurate as you can with your scores.
Your Space to Reflect
📍 Starting Point
- How do you currently monitor your effort during activities?
- What physical sensations make you unsure about continuing exercise?
🤔 Looking Deeper
- When have you felt most confident about your exercise intensity?
- How do you tell the difference between exercise effort and concerning pain?
💡 Exploring Possibilities
- What strategies could help you better gauge your exercise intensity?
- Which activities give you the most confidence in managing your effort levels?
🔄 New Perspectives
- How might understanding your body's exercise responses change your confidence?
- What would trusting your ability to pace yourself look like?
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