How to Find and Train in Your Heart Rate Zones

Quick Answer

Heart rate zones split your effort into five bands, from an easy warm-up to an all-out sprint, each defined as a range of beats per minute. They are built from your maximum heart rate, which this calculator estimates from your age using either the classic 220 minus age or the more accurate Tanaka formula. Add your resting heart rate and it switches to the Karvonen method, which personalises the zones to your fitness. Zone 2, around 60 to 70 percent of your maximum, is the easy aerobic pace most endurance training should live in. As a max heart rate calculator, a target heart rate calculator, and a training zone calculator, it turns your max heart rate into training zones and a target heart rate. Add a resting pulse and it works from your heart rate reserve instead.

What the Zones Mean

Each zone trains something different. Zone 1, 50 to 60 percent, is a gentle warm-up or recovery. Zone 2, 60 to 70 percent, is easy conversational effort that builds your aerobic base and is where the bulk of endurance work belongs. Zone 3, 70 to 80 percent, is a moderate, slightly harder steady effort. Zone 4, 80 to 90 percent, is hard work near your lactate threshold that raises your ceiling. Zone 5, 90 to 100 percent, is maximal effort you can only hold for short bursts, used sparingly in intervals. Use these bands to find the fat-burning or aerobic zone at a glance.

Estimating Maximum Heart Rate

Every zone is a fraction of your maximum heart rate, so the estimate of that maximum matters. Here is how maximum heart rate is estimated from age: 220 minus age versus the Tanaka formula, since max heart rate formulas carry a spread of about ten beats. The familiar 220 minus age is easy to remember but rough, with real values scattered around ten beats either way. The Tanaka formula, 208 minus 0.7 times your age, tracks the population a little better, particularly for older adults. Neither is a substitute for a measured maximum from a hard supervised test or a chest-strap monitor, but for planning everyday training they are close enough.

Personalising With the Karvonen Method

A flat percentage of your maximum ignores how fit you are. The Karvonen method fixes that by working from your heart-rate reserve, the difference between your resting and maximum heart rates. It takes a percentage of that reserve and adds your resting rate back on. Because a fitter person has a lower resting heart rate and therefore a bigger reserve, their zones shift to match. Add your resting heart rate here and the zones recalculate to reflect your individual fitness.

Examples

Age 40, 220 minus age. For example, that gives a max of 180, so Zone 2 runs from about 108 to 126 beats per minute.

Age 40, Tanaka. For example, 208 minus 0.7 times 40 gives 180 too here, but the two methods drift apart for older ages, which is percent of max versus the Karvonen reserve method in miniature.

Add a resting rate of 55. For example, the Karvonen method now sets Zone 2 near 130 to 143, higher than the flat-percentage version because your reserve is wide.

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