Is 220 minus age accurate?

Fox, Naughton and Haskell published the figure in 1971, and Robergs and Landwehr's 2002 review is where its provenance was established: there is no published regression behind it, and its authors did not claim one. It is still printed on gym cardio equipment worldwide, which is why this site computes it - readers arrive holding it - and prints the alternatives beside it.

Tanaka 2001 is the closest thing to a replacement for general adult use: 208 minus 0.7 times age, derived by pooling 351 studies covering 18,712 subjects and cross-validated in 514 more. Its authors' conclusion was specifically that 220 minus age underestimates maximum heart rate in older adults.

The two equations cross at exactly age 40, where both give 180 bpm. Below 40 Fox reads higher - 200 against 194 at age 20 - and above it lower, by 9 bpm at 70 and 12 at 80. So "220 minus age is too high" and "220 minus age is too low" are both true statements about different ages, which is why arguments about it go in circles without one attached.

For women, Gulati 2010 gives 206 minus 0.88 times age, derived in 5,437 asymptomatic women, and its authors reported that male-derived equations overestimate their peak heart rate. And all three carry a prediction error of 7 to 11 beats per minute, so the honest summary is that the choice of equation matters less than remembering that only a supervised maximal test measures your own. See max heart rate formulas compared for the table by age.