Find your estimated maximum heart rate and the five training zones in bpm — calculated in your browser.
Maximum heart rate is the highest number of beats per minute your heart can reach at full effort, and it falls with age. This tool estimates it with the Tanaka equation, HRmax = 208 − 0.7 × age, published by Tanaka, Monahan and Seals in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in 2001 after a meta-analysis of 351 studies. The much better known 220 − age has no such pedigree: it came out of an informal review by Fox in 1971 and systematically underestimates the maximum of people over 40, which is why the older formula appears here only as a comparison line.
From that ceiling the calculator builds the five classic training zones. Zone 1 (50-60%) is very easy work for warm-ups and recovery; zone 2 (60-70%) is conversational pace and the base of aerobic endurance, where most weekly volume should sit; zone 3 (70-80%) is moderately hard and builds aerobic capacity; zone 4 (80-90%) runs near the lactate threshold and raises the pace you can hold; zone 5 (90-100%) is all-out interval work, used sparingly. If you enter a resting heart rate, the zones switch to the Karvonen method, published in 1957, which applies the percentages to your heart rate reserve — the gap between resting and maximum — instead of to the raw maximum, giving noticeably higher and more individual thresholds.
Everything here is a statistical estimate. Even the Tanaka equation has a standard deviation of roughly 10 to 12 beats per minute, so two people of the same age can have genuinely different maximums, and only a supervised stress test measures yours. Your heart rate on the day also drifts with heat, humidity, altitude, dehydration, caffeine, sleep and stress, and medication such as beta blockers changes the whole scale, which makes percentage zones meaningless without medical guidance. Perceived effort and the talk test remain excellent companions to the numbers. If you are starting to train, have a heart condition or feel chest pain, dizziness or unusual shortness of breath during exercise, talk to a doctor before chasing any zone. The calculation runs entirely in your browser and no data is sent anywhere.
Maximum heart rate (Tanaka et al., 2001): HRmax = 208 − 0.7 × age. Zones as a percentage of HRmax, or by Karvonen (1957) when a resting rate is given: HR = resting + (HRmax − resting) × percentage. Zones: 50-60% recovery, 60-70% base, 70-80% aerobic, 80-90% threshold, 90-100% maximum. The older formula, shown only for comparison, is 220 − age.
The estimate used here is 208 − 0.7 × age, so a 30-year-old comes out at about 187 bpm. It is a population average with a spread of roughly 10 to 12 bpm, and your real maximum can only be measured in a supervised stress test.
Because it came from an informal review in 1971 and gets less accurate with age, typically underestimating the maximum of people over 40. The Tanaka equation was derived from a meta-analysis of 351 studies and fits the data better across the whole age range.
It calculates zones from your heart rate reserve — maximum minus resting — instead of from the maximum alone. Adding your resting heart rate makes the zones more personal, and generally higher, because it accounts for how conditioned your heart already is.
Zone 2 uses the highest proportion of fat as fuel, but higher zones burn more total calories in the same time. For body composition what matters is the weekly energy balance and consistency, not one magic zone.
Count your beats for a full minute while still lying down, right after waking up and before coffee, and repeat it for a few days to get an average. Most fitness watches and chest straps report it automatically.
No. Everything is calculated locally in JavaScript on your device — nothing is uploaded, logged or stored.
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