What's my max heart rate?
Slide your age and see your max heart rate from the three formulas people use, the range where most real maxes sit, and zone 2 and the hard minutes worked out from it. If you've seen a higher number in an all-out effort, add it.
173beats a minute, most likely. For about 2 in 3 people the real max sits between 162 and 184.
The three formulas at 50
9 beats between the three at 50. 220 minus your age runs low for most people over 30.
From 173: zone 2 is 104 to 121 and the hard minutes of a 4x4 are 156 to 164 beats a minute. All your zones
What your result means, and what to do next
- It's an estimate from your age. Fitness and sex barely change it, so no formula can know yours exactly.
- About 1 in 3 people have a real max more than 11 beats above or below the formula.
- The highest number you've seen in an all-out effort, on a chest strap, is a floor. Your max is at least that.
- Turn it into zones. Zone 2 for steady days and the band for the hard minutes. Your heart rate zones
- Check the hard minutes by feel. At the end of a hard 4 minutes you should manage only a few words, whatever the number says.
- On a beta blocker, none of these numbers apply. Go by effort and ask your doctor before hard sessions. Zones on a beta blocker
Where the formulas come from
220 minus your age is the one everyone knows. In 2001, Hirofumi Tanaka and his colleagues pointed out that it had never been checked in a group with enough older adults. They pooled 351 studies with 18,712 people and found 208 minus 0.7 x age fit better, then checked it in 514 healthy people in their own lab and got almost the same line. The old rule ran low in older adults.
In 2013, the HUNT fitness study in Norway tested 3,320 healthy men and women, keeping only those whose max effort could be verified. Their best line was 211 minus 0.64 x age, and the older formulas came out low for everyone over 30. At 50 the three give 170, 173 and 179. At 70 they give 150, 159 and 166.
Why your own max can be far off
A formula gives the average for your age, and people spread a long way around it. In HUNT the standard error was 10.8 beats a minute, so about 1 in 3 people have a real max more than 11 beats above or below the line. Both studies found that sex and fitness barely moved it, so being fit doesn't raise your max, and being out of shape doesn't lower it.
This calculator uses 208 minus 0.7 x age, the formula from the biggest analysis, and shows the 2 in 3 range around it. Garmin and most watches build their zones as a percent of whatever max you give them, so a better max gives you better zones.
Your real max
A lab treadmill test to exhaustion measures it. Without one, the highest heart rate you've seen at the end of an all-out effort, on a chest strap, is a floor, because your max is at least that. If it's above the formula, use it. If you have a heart condition, chest pain or you've been mostly sitting, don't go all out to find it. See is it safe to push hard?
Max heart rate doesn't measure fitness. Two people with the same max can have very different VO2 max. For the number that does, see what's my VO2 max?, and for why the old rule lasted so long, your max heart rate is 220 minus your age.
5 sources
- Tanaka H, Monahan KD and Seals DR, Age-predicted maximal heart rate revisited, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2001europepmc.org
- Nes BM and others, Age-predicted maximal heart rate in healthy subjects: the HUNT fitness study, Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 2013europepmc.org
- Garmin, Forerunner 245 owner's manual, Heart rate zone calculations, checked 2026-11-14www8.garmin.com
- Helgerud J and others, Aerobic high-intensity intervals improve VO2max more than moderate training, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 2007europepmc.org
- Stensvold D and others, Effect of exercise training for five years on all cause mortality in older adults, the Generation 100 study: randomised controlled trial, BMJ, 2020pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
