Heart Rate Zones by Age

What this page does

A heart rate zone is a band of beats per minute, and the reason the question comes with an age attached is that every published zone table is a set of percentages of a maximum heart rate that nobody knows until they either measure it or estimate it. This page does both halves: it turns an age into a maximum with the equation Tanaka, Monahan and Seals published in 2001, then cuts that maximum into the five bands of the Edwards model — 50 to 60, 60 to 70, 70 to 80, 80 to 90 and 90 to 100 per cent — and prints each band in bpm.

The five boundaries are not this site's invention and they are not a guess. Edwards' five-zone model is a named model with a published weighting, and the two open-access papers cited below both print the same five bands. That matters on this site in particular: the fat burning heart rate page says in its own words that it gives one intensity rather than a five-zone chart, because it had no source that would let it pick a model. This page is the page that picks one, names it, and cites it.

What it does not do is tell you what training to run. A zone is a band, not a plan. Nothing here prescribes sessions, durations, intervals or weekly volume, and nothing here is medical advice — the last section says so in full.

Everything runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to a server, there is no account and no upload.

How the numbers are calculated

Two published things go in and nothing else. The first turns an age into a maximum heart rate:

HR_max = 208 − 0.7 × age

Tanaka H., Monahan K.D. and Seals D.R. (2001), Journal of the American College of Cardiology 37(1):153–156, DOI 10.1016/S0735-1097(00)01054-8. The same equation and the same paper are used on the fat burning heart rate page, so a 40-year-old reads the same 180 bpm maximum on both.

The second is the five-zone model. Each zone is a share of that maximum:

Z₁ 50–60% Z₂ 60–70% Z₃ 70–80% Z₄ 80–90% Z₅ 90–100%

A zone includes its floor and excludes its ceiling: zone 1 starts at exactly 50 per cent and runs up to, but not including, 60 per cent, where zone 2 begins. Papers that print the bands in whole numbers write the same partition as 50–59, 60–69, 70–79, 80–89 and 90–100, and one of the two papers cited below prints it that way while the other prints it the way it is written here. They are the same five bands.

Rounding, and why the top zone has no printed ceiling

The maximum is rounded to a whole beat first, because that is the number the page shows you and every band has to be a percentage of the number you can see. Then each boundary is that maximum times 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 per cent, rounded to the nearest whole beat. The top of each zone is the floor of the next zone minus one beat, so the five bands meet exactly and leave no gap and no overlap.

Zone 5 is printed as a floor and an open top, like 162+, rather than as a closed range. The published band is 90 to 100 per cent, and its ceiling is the maximum heart rate itself — which is the input to the calculation, not a result of it. Printing the ceiling in every one of the 63 rows would turn a zone table into a maximum-heart-rate-by-age table, which this page is not; that table already exists on the fat burning heart rate page, where the by-age table has a column for it.

A worked example: a 40-year-old on the age formula

The maximum is 208 − 0.7 × 40 = 180 bpm. The five boundaries are 0.50 × 180 = 90, 0.60 × 180 = 108, 0.70 × 180 = 126, 0.80 × 180 = 144 and 0.90 × 180 = 162. Each zone then runs from its own boundary to one beat under the next:

Zone 1 — 90 to 107 bpm, which is 50.0 to 59.4 per cent of 180.
Zone 2 — 108 to 125 bpm, which is 60.0 to 69.4 per cent.
Zone 3 — 126 to 143 bpm, which is 70.0 to 79.4 per cent.
Zone 4 — 144 to 161 bpm, which is 80.0 to 89.4 per cent.
Zone 5 — 162 bpm and above, which is 90.0 per cent up to the maximum itself.

Every figure on this page is one of those five multiplications. There is no lookup table behind the numbers, no interpolation between published points and no coefficient that is not written on this page.

The five zones, and the weight the model gives each one

The part of the Edwards model that most zone charts leave out is that the five bands are not equal. Each one carries a multiplier, and the multiplier is what the model was built for: an hour in zone 2 counts twice an hour in zone 1, and an hour in zone 5 counts five times. This page prints the weight because it is part of the model and it is a fact you cannot check if nobody writes it down. It does not compute a training load from it, because that would need session durations, and this page does not take durations.

Zone	Share of maximum	Weight	Described as
Zone 1	50–60%	1	Relaxed, an easy pace, breathing through the nose
Zone 2	60–70%	2	Comfortable, breathing deeper, conversation still possible
Zone 3	70–80%	3	Moderate, holding a conversation gets difficult
Zone 4	80–90%	4	Fast and a little uncomfortable, breathing forceful
Zone 5	90–100%	5	Maximal, hard to sustain for long, breathing laboured

The share column is Edwards'. The weight column is Edwards'. The descriptions are the ones Garmin prints beside the identical five boundaries in its watch manuals — a second published statement of the same partition, written for people rather than for statisticians. They describe how the band feels, not what to do in it.

One thing worth checking against the rest of this site: 74 per cent, the intensity the fat burning heart rate page reports as the point where fat oxidation peaked, is inside zone 3, not zone 2. For a 40-year-old that page's 133 bpm sits between this page's 126 and 143. The two pages use the same maximum and different sources, and the arithmetic puts them in the same place.

The reverse direction: a heart rate you have seen

Most people arrive at a zone table holding a number rather than an age: a watch said 142, and the question is what that was. The block above the reading takes a heart rate and reads it against the five bands of whichever maximum is in play. It returns the zone the beat falls in, that beat as a percentage of the maximum, and the distance to the nearer of the two boundaries — because a heart rate two beats inside a boundary and one two beats outside it look identical on a watch.

The arithmetic is the same five multiplications read backwards. At a 180 bpm maximum, 142 is 142 ÷ 180 = 78.9 per cent, which is inside zone 3 (126 to 143). 120 is 66.7 per cent, inside zone 2. 165 is 91.7 per cent, inside zone 5. Nothing is modelled here: a heart rate is placed in a band by comparing it with the band edges.

The sources, and exactly what each one supplies

Tanaka H., Monahan K.D., Seals D.R. (2001) — Age-predicted maximal heart rate revisited, Journal of the American College of Cardiology 37(1):153–156, DOI 10.1016/S0735-1097(00)01054-8. Supplies the equation 208 − 0.7 × age and nothing else. Its derivation and its cross-validation are written up on the fat burning heart rate page, which uses the same equation.
Edwards S. (1993) — The Heart Rate Monitor Book, Polar Electro Oy. The origin of the five-zone model and of the 1 to 5 weighting. Supplies the partition and the weights; it supplies no bpm figure, because a model stated in percentages has none until a maximum is put into it.
Leo P., Spragg J., Simon D., Lawley J.S., Mujika I. (2020) — Training characteristics and power profile of professional U23 cyclists throughout a competitive season, Sports 8(12):167, DOI 10.3390/sports8120167. A peer-reviewed, open-access paper that states the model and prints the bands as zone 1 50–59%, zone 2 60–69%, zone 3 70–79%, zone 4 80–89% and zone 5 90–100% of peak heart rate, with the weights 1 to 5. This is the source that pins the whole-number form of the bands.
Yu H., Gao Y., Liang J., Fan Y., Jiang S. (2024) — Optimal dose of vigorous physical activity on cardiorespiratory and perceptual response for sedentary youths using internal load monitoring, Frontiers in Physiology 15:1406402, DOI 10.3389/fphys.2024.1406402. A second peer-reviewed, open-access paper printing the same five bands as 50–60%, 60–70%, 70–80%, 80–90% and 90–100% of maximum heart rate with coefficients 1 to 5.
Garmin, Heart Rate Zone Calculations, in the Venu owner's manual. Prints the identical five boundaries — 50–60, 60–70, 70–80, 80–90 and 90–100 per cent of maximum heart rate — with a one-line description of each. Supplies the descriptions in the table above, not the numbers.

Two peer-reviewed papers and one manufacturer's manual state the same five boundaries, and the model's origin is a named book. Nothing on this page is transcribed from a coaching site, a blog or another calculator, and no number here comes from a chart somebody drew.

Supported range and limits

Age: 14 to 90. The table lists 18 to 80, which is the range the age equation was fitted over in the population sense; the calculator accepts a little either side of it.
Measured maximum: 100 to 230 bpm, or blank to use the age equation.
Zones: five, at 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 per cent of the maximum. Fixed boundaries, not a choice of model.
Rounding: the maximum to the nearest whole beat, then each boundary to the nearest whole beat. Zone tops are the next floor minus one beat, so no beat belongs to two zones and none belongs to none.
Cost: none. No account, no email, no paywall, no daily limit, no request to a server.
Privacy: every number is computed in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere or stored — reload the page and it is gone.
Works offline once the page has loaded, and on a phone.

What this page deliberately does not do

No training plan. No sessions, no intervals, no durations, no weekly volume, no programme, no advice on how long to spend in any zone. A zone is a band of beats per minute; turning it into a week of training is a different job, and one this page has no data for.
No medical advice. If you have a heart condition, or take medication that changes your heart rate, the numbers here are not targets to train to — ask the person who treats you. A percentage of an estimated maximum is arithmetic, not a clearance.
No heart-rate-reserve conversion. Every zone here is a share of maximum heart rate. The heart-rate-reserve method works from the gap between resting and maximum instead, which needs a resting heart rate and is a different model; this page does not convert between the two.
No maximum-heart-rate-by-age table. The table above prints five zone edges per age, not a maximum per age. Zone 5 is printed as a floor for exactly that reason. The maximum for each age is a column on the fat burning heart rate page.
No grade. Nothing here says a zone, a heart rate or a maximum is good, bad, normal or high for your age. That would need cut-points with an outcome behind them, and this page has none.
No threshold zones. Zones cut at a lactate or ventilatory threshold are measured from a test, not from a percentage of maximum, and they do not line up with these five bands. This page does not claim they do.
No watch sync and no import. There is nothing to connect and nothing to upload.

Questions

What are the five heart rate zones by age?

Five bands of beats per minute, each a share of your maximum heart rate: zone 1 is 50 to 60 per cent of maximum, zone 2 is 60 to 70, zone 3 is 70 to 80, zone 4 is 80 to 90, and zone 5 is 90 to 100. The age comes in because the maximum is estimated from it, as 208 minus 0.7 times age, the Tanaka equation. For a 40-year-old that is a 180 bpm maximum, so zone 1 is 90 to 107 bpm, zone 2 is 108 to 125, zone 3 is 126 to 143, zone 4 is 144 to 161, and zone 5 is 162 and above.

Which zone model does this page use?

The Edwards five-zone model, from Edwards (1993), The Heart Rate Monitor Book. It is the model with bands at 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 per cent of maximum heart rate and a weight of 1 to 5 on each band. Two peer-reviewed open-access papers print the same five bands: Leo et al. (2020) in Sports 8(12):167 writes them as 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, 80-89 and 90-100 per cent of peak heart rate, and Yu et al. (2024) in Frontiers in Physiology 15:1406402 writes them as 50-60 through 90-100 per cent of maximum heart rate. Both are cited in full above. No other page on this site picks a zone model.

What is zone 2 for a 40-year-old?

A 40-year-old on the age formula has a 180 bpm maximum, and zone 2 is 60 to 70 per cent of it, which is 108 to 125 bpm. Type 40 in the age box and the page prints all five bands, and the row for 40 in the table is the same five figures.

Why does zone 5 have no upper number?

Because its ceiling is your maximum heart rate, which is the number the whole calculation starts from. The published band is 90 to 100 per cent, so the top of zone 5 is the maximum itself. Printing that in all 63 rows would turn the table into a maximum-heart-rate-by-age table, and that table already exists on the fat burning heart rate page. The floor of zone 5 is the number worth knowing, and that is what the table prints.

Do the zones change with age?

Yes, because the maximum does. The five percentages are fixed at 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 for everybody; what moves is the maximum they are applied to. The age equation takes 28 bpm off the maximum between 20 and 60, so every zone edge drops with it. The table has one row per age from 18 to 80 so the whole slide is visible at once.

Is a measured maximum better than the age formula?

Usually, yes. An equation fitted to thousands of people is a statement about the middle of a distribution, so it is wrong for most individuals by some amount, and the error runs both ways. If you have a number from a test or a hard race, type it in the measured box and every band moves to it. The page then says which maximum it used, and the table keeps showing the age-formula rows so the difference is visible.

Why do my watch zones differ from these?

Most likely because the watch is anchored to something else. Zones built on heart rate reserve start from the gap between your resting and maximum heart rate rather than from a share of maximum, so the same percentage lands on different beats. Some watches also let you set the boundaries yourself. This page uses one model, states the boundaries, and does not convert to or from the reserve method.

Does this page tell me what training to do?

No. It turns an age into five bands of beats per minute and stops there. No sessions, no intervals, no durations, no weekly volume, no programme. A zone is a band, not a plan, and this page has no data about your training to build one from. If you have a heart condition or take medication that changes your heart rate, the numbers here are not targets to train to.

Every age from 18 to 80, five zones each

The other direction: a heart rate you have seen