RPE Monotony/Strain History Dashboard: A Detailed Overview

The RPE Monotony/Strain History Dashboard allows you to calculate and visualize weekly training load, monotony, and strain using session RPE (sRPE) and session duration data.

This dashboard is commonly used to monitor athlete workload trends, identify periods of excessive training consistency, and evaluate overall training stress over time.

The calculations are based on the training load model originally described by Foster et al., where:

Training Load = Session RPE × Session Duration

The dashboard automatically calculates weekly load, monotony, and strain for each week displayed.

Builder Screen and Options

1. Dashboard Name

Enter a unique name for your dashboard.

This name will appear when assigning the dashboard to Athlete or Group layouts.

2. sRPE Field

Select the field that contains the user's session RPE values.

This field should represent the user's subjective rating of how difficult the training session was.

Common examples include:

• Session RPE
• Daily RPE
• Workout RPE
• Exertion Rating

The selected field is used to calculate training load for each completed session.

3. Duration Field

Select the field that contains session duration.

Common examples include:

• Session Duration (minutes)
• Workout Duration
• Practice Length
• Training Time

The selected duration field is multiplied by the selected sRPE field to calculate session load.

Example

If an athlete reports:

• Session RPE = 7
• Duration = 60 minutes

Training Load = 420 AU (Arbitrary Units)

4. Number of Weeks to Show

Specify how many weeks of historical data should be displayed.

Examples:

• 4 Weeks
• 8 Weeks
• 12 Weeks
• 26 Weeks

The dashboard will calculate and display load, monotony, and strain for each week in the selected period.

5. Count Empty Days as Rest Days

This setting determines how days without recorded training data are treated in the monotony and strain calculations.

Enabled

Days with no recorded load are treated as rest days with a training load of zero.

This is typically recommended when users are expected to train regularly and missing entries represent true rest days.

Disabled

Only days containing recorded training load are included in the calculations.

This may be appropriate when training data is entered inconsistently or when athletes do not train on a predictable schedule.

Understanding the Calculations

Training Load

Daily Training Load is calculated as:

Session RPE × Duration

Weekly Load is then calculated as:

Sum of all daily training loads within the week

Monotony

Monotony measures how similar daily training loads are across a week.

Monotony = Average Daily Load ÷ Standard Deviation of Daily Load

Higher monotony values indicate less day-to-day variation in training.

Lower monotony values indicate greater variation in training loads throughout the week.

Strain

Strain combines overall workload and monotony into a single metric.

Strain = Weekly Load × Monotony

High strain values typically occur when athletes accumulate large workloads with little day-to-day variation.

Example 1: Weekly Training Load Monitoring

Configuration:

• sRPE Field = Session RPE
• Duration Field = Session Duration
• Number of Weeks = 8
• Count Empty Days as Rest Days = Enabled

Result:

The dashboard displays weekly training load, monotony, and strain values for the previous eight weeks.

This allows coaches to identify periods of increasing workload accumulation.

Example 2: Monitoring Consistency of Training

Configuration:

• Number of Weeks = 12
• Count Empty Days as Rest Days = Enabled

Result:

The dashboard highlights weeks where training loads were highly consistent from day to day, resulting in elevated monotony scores.

This can help identify periods where training variation may need to be increased.