Raising it

What heart rate is zone 2?

By GyroscopeUpdated November 14, 20266 sources

Zone 2 is 60 to 70 percent of your max heart rate on most watches, a pace where you can still hold a conversation. At 50 that’s about 104 to 121 beats a minute, but your real max can sit 11 beats away from the formula.

Zone 2 is everywhere in fitness talk, and most people use it with a number they’ve never checked. The zone is a percentage of your max heart rate, and unless you’ve done a max test, yours comes from a formula, often 220 minus age, which runs low after 30. Get the max wrong and the whole zone slides with it.

We’d use the talk test first and the beats second. If you can talk in full sentences but you’re breathing a little deeper, you’re there. The numbers below are a starting point, and the Gyroscope app personalizes yours.

Zone 2 by age

Garmin’s default zones put zone 2 at 60 to 70 percent of max, described as a “comfortable pace, slightly deeper breathing, conversation possible.” The table uses the max from 208 - 0.7 x age.

Three formulas, three answers

• 220 minus age. The old rule of thumb. Tanaka and colleagues pointed out in 2001 that it had never been tested in a group with enough older adults, and it underestimates max heart rate in older people.
• 208 - 0.7 x age. From 351 studies and 18,712 people, then checked in a lab on 514 more.
• 211 - 0.64 x age. From 3,320 healthy Norwegians in the HUNT study, each with a verified max test. Even this best fit missed a person’s real max by about 11 beats for 1 in 3 people.

At 50 they give 170, 173 and 179. At 70 they give 150, 159 and 166, a 16-beat spread. The tool below shows all three for your age, and a measured max from a hard test replaces them.

What zone 2 does for VO2 max

Steady training at this kind of pace works. Across 28 trials in adults aged 18 to 45, it raised VO2 max by 4.9 points against no exercise. Intervals raised it by 5.5. In already-fit men, though, eight weeks of steady running at 70 percent of max didn’t raise VO2 max significantly, while hard 4-minute intervals did. Zone 2 builds the base, and for most people one or two hard sessions a week add the rest. The full argument is in is zone 2 the best way to raise VO2 max?, and bodyfat.guide takes on the fat-burning zone.

On a beta blocker

The drug holds your heart rate down, so heart rate zones don’t fit you. Use effort instead. In the Generation 100 study, steady sessions were about 13 on the 6 to 20 effort scale, where 6 is no effort and 20 is all-out. See heart rate zones on a beta blocker.