Max Heart Rate and Zone Calculator

How to read your zones

Each zone covers a share of your heart rate reserve, which is the gap between your resting heart rate and your max. At 40, with a resting heart rate of 60, that gap is 120 beats, so zone 2 starts at 60 plus 72, or 132 bpm, and runs up to 143.

Below half your reserve, the app counts no zone at all, which is where warm-up walking and rest stops usually fall. The app's own label for zone 5 is VO2max, a name taken from VO2 max (your body's top rate of oxygen use), since that is the effort the zone sits near.

Many calculators work zones out as a plain share of your max instead. The reserve method also counts your resting heart rate, so its low zones start higher, and a lower resting heart rate gives you a wider range to train in.

How this is worked out

Max (Tanaka) = 208 − 0.7 × age, rounded down
Max (older formula) = 220 − age
Max (Gulati, women) = 206 − 0.88 × age, rounded
Reserve = max − resting heart rate
Zone edge = resting heart rate + share × reserve

The default is the Tanaka, Monahan and Seals formula from 2001, the one the app uses when you haven't entered a max. That team pooled 351 studies covering 18,712 people, then checked the result in a lab study of 514 healthy adults, which came out at 209 minus 0.7 times age. The app rounds the answer down to a whole beat, so 35 gives 183 and not 183.5, and this page does the same.

Gulati and colleagues followed 5,437 women after an exercise stress test and found that their peak heart rate fell as 206 minus 0.88 times age, lower than the usual formulas give. Tanaka's study found no difference between men and women, so the two papers disagree, and the switch above lets you compare both.

The 220 minus age formula is the oldest of the three, and it traces to a 1971 paper by Fox, Naughton and Haskell. A 2002 history by Robergs and Landwehr found that it came from looking over data from about eleven earlier sources, rather than from original research.

The reserve method takes its name from Martti Karvonen's 1957 training study. Robergs and Landwehr give a worked example with a resting heart rate of 50 and a max of 192, where 60 to 80 percent of the reserve comes to 135 to 164 bpm, and this calculator matches it.

Zone edges count whole beats the way the app sorts them, so a beat joins a zone once it reaches that zone's lower edge. With the worked example above, 135 bpm sits just under 60 percent and stays in zone 1, and zone 2 starts at 136.

What a formula can't tell you

Every formula here estimates the average for people of your age, and your own max can sit 10 or more beats above or below it. Robergs and Landwehr put the usual error of these formulas at 7 to 11 beats per minute, so two people of the same age can need quite different zones.

A max you have measured in a hard race or test beats any formula, and you can enter it above. If you have a heart condition or take a medicine that slows your heart, such as a beta blocker, a doctor knows your limits better than a formula does. It may help to talk to one before you try an all-out test or race.

The max heart rate by age explainer has a chart for ages 20 to 70, and it works one target zone out both ways for a 50-year-old.

For a closer look at why heart rate can mislead you on easy days, our post on whether you are really in zone 2 covers drift, heat and wrist sensors. The pace calculator turns a zone into a running pace, and the VO2 max calculator estimates fitness from a timed run.

Privacy

The maths happens in your browser, and changing your age or heart rate makes no network requests. Your entries aren't stored or sent anywhere, so opening the page again brings back the example values.

Kinoku's Zone Training page explains the pace zones in the screenshot, and why the app leans on pace for most runs.

Common questions

What is my max heart rate at 40?

Tanaka's formula gives 208 minus 28, which is 180 beats per minute, and 220 minus 40 also gives 180, so the two common formulas agree at that age. Gulati's formula for women gives about 171. Your own max can still sit ten or more beats away from any of them.

What is a good target heart rate for my age?

A target depends on the kind of session you have in mind, so this page shows five zones and leaves the choice with you. At 40 with a resting heart rate of 60, easy zone 2 runs from 132 to 143 beats per minute, and the hardest zone starts at 168.

What heart rate is zone 2 for me?

In Kinoku's model, zone 2 covers 60 to 70 percent of your heart rate reserve, which is the gap between your resting heart rate and your max. Enter your age and resting heart rate above to see it in beats per minute. Other apps and coaches draw zone 2 in other places, so their numbers can differ.

Which max heart rate formula is the most accurate?

Tanaka's 2001 study found 208 minus 0.7 times age across more than 18,000 people, and it found that 220 minus age reads too low for older adults. Every formula still describes a group average, so a max you measure yourself will beat any of them.

Why does 220 minus age give a different number?

The older formula drops one beat for every year of age, while Tanaka's drops 0.7 of a beat. Both give 180 at 40, so the gap grows the further you are from that age. At 60, 220 minus age gives 160 and Tanaka's formula gives 166.

Do women have a different max heart rate?

Tanaka's team found no difference between men and women. Gulati's study of 5,437 women found that the usual formula ran high for them, and it offered 206 minus 0.88 times age. You can switch to it above if you'd like to compare.

Why does my resting heart rate change the zones?

The zones here split the range between your resting heart rate and your max, so a lower resting heart rate widens that range and lowers the bottom of each zone. Left blank, the calculator uses 60 beats per minute, the same value the app uses when it has none.

Does this calculator save my age or heart rate?

Your entries stay in this browser tab, and changing them makes no network requests. Nothing is stored or sent anywhere, so the page opens again with its example values.