Most handball teams outside the top leagues have no GPS vests, no heart rate straps and no sports scientist. They still have the same problem as the teams that do. Some weeks are heavier than planned, some players carry more than the coach thinks, and injuries tend to follow the weeks nobody noticed.
There is a method that needs nothing more than one question after each session. It has been used in research for more than twenty years, and a 2017 review counted 950 studies citing the original method (Haddad et al., 2017).
What session RPE is
RPE stands for rating of perceived exertion. With the session RPE method, each player answers one question about the whole session: how hard was it? They answer on a scale from 0 to 10. You multiply that number by the length of the session in minutes. The result is the session load, in arbitrary units.
Foster and colleagues described and tested the method in 2001. They compared it with a heart rate based method across different types of exercise, including basketball, and found a consistent relationship between the two. They concluded that session RPE is a valid way to quantify training across a wide range of exercise types (Foster et al., 2001).
The scale
Session RPE uses a modified 0 to 10 scale:
| Rating | Label |
|---|---|
| 0 | Rest |
| 1 | Very, very easy |
| 2 | Easy |
| 3 | Moderate |
| 4 | Somewhat hard |
| 5 | Hard |
| 6 | Between hard and very hard |
| 7 | Very hard |
| 8 | Between very hard and nearly maximal |
| 9 | Nearly maximal |
| 10 | Maximal |
When to ask
Ask about 30 minutes after the session, once players have showered and cooled down. A hard final drill or an easy cool-down can otherwise colour the rating of the whole session. The original method collects the rating at about that point for the same reason.
How to calculate a week
Take one back court player and one normal week:
| Day | Session | Minutes | RPE | Load |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | Training | 90 | 5 | 450 |
| Thursday | Training | 90 | 7 | 630 |
| Friday | Light session | 60 | 3 | 180 |
| Saturday | Match | 60 | 8 | 480 |
| Week | 1740 |
Count the minutes the player actually took part in, and use the same rule every week. A substitute who sat for most of Saturday and a back court player who played the full match did not have the same week, even if they trained side by side.
Why the jump from week to week matters
A weekly total means little on its own. The useful number is the change.
Handball has direct evidence on this. A study followed 679 elite youth handball players aged 14 to 18 for 31 weeks, with weekly reports of training and match hours and of shoulder injuries. Players whose weekly handball load rose by more than 60 percent compared with their average over the previous four weeks had a higher shoulder injury rate than players whose load stayed within 20 percent. The authors single out players with weak external rotation strength or poor control of the shoulder blade as especially at risk (Møller et al., 2017). The result sat at the edge of statistical significance, so read 60 percent as a warning level rather than a precise limit.
That study counted load in hours, not in session RPE. The lesson carries over to any unit: sudden spikes carry the risk.
Compare each player's week with their own average over the last four weeks. Treat a jump of more than 60 percent as a warning sign, the threshold used in the youth handball study, and look again before you add another session.
Where spikes come from in handball
- The first weeks back after the summer or Christmas break.
- Tournament weekends with three or four matches in a row.
- Youth players who also train with an older age group or a school team.
- Players coming back from injury straight into full sessions.
Most of these are on the calendar weeks in advance, which means most of them can be planned.
Your plan and the player's week are two different numbers
The load you planned and the load a player reports often differ. A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis of 27 studies concluded that coaches may underestimate how hard athletes find the sessions the coach meant to be easy. If you only log what you planned, the easy days in your plan may be the days where the gap is largest.
The same gap shows up after matches, and the article on what players don't say in the locker room looks at it from that side.
How to collect it without a spreadsheet
Session RPE only works if every player answers every time, and answers honestly.
Ask each player privately
A rating called out in front of the group drifts towards whatever the captain said. A paper list at the door, a short form or an app all work, as long as players cannot see each other's numbers.
Ask the same question every time
"How hard was today's session, from 0 to 10?" Keep the wording fixed so this week's answer can be compared with last week's.
Track who did not answer
A missing rating is information too. A player who stops answering is often the one you most need to hear from.
What session RPE will not tell you
The number tells you how hard the week was for a player. It does not tell you why. A high rating can come from the training, from bad sleep, from exams or from a sore knee. Pair it with a few short wellness questions, described in a simple wellness questionnaire for handball players, and treat pain as a separate question.
Where SquadX fits
In SquadX, players answer a short check-in in the player app before and after every match, including how hard they worked, and Coach Lucas points out who is carrying fatigue in the post-match brief. For a quick calculation of a training week, the free coaching tools on squadx.app include a training load calculator.
Quick answers
