Target heart rate by age

A target heart rate is a percentage of a maximum heart rate that was itself estimated from your age. The ACSM classifies 64 to 76 percent of maximum as moderate intensity and 77 to 95 percent as vigorous. The table below runs both bands across six ages, from three published equations.

Work it out with the heart rate zone calculator

Target heart-rate bands by age. Maximum heart rate from Tanaka 2001 (208 - 0.7 x age), with Fox (220 - age) shown for comparison; intensity bands as classified by ACSM in 2011.
Age	HRmax, Tanaka	HRmax, Fox	Moderate, 64-76% (bpm)	Vigorous, 77-95% (bpm)
20	194	200	124-147	149-184
30	187	190	120-142	144-178
40	180	180	115-137	139-171
50	173	170	111-131	133-164
60	166	160	106-126	128-158
70	159	150	102-121	122-151

What a target heart rate is a percentage of

A target heart rate is not measured. It is a share of your maximum heart rate, and that maximum is itself predicted from your age by an equation. So there are two layers between the number on the chart and your own heart: the intensity band somebody chose, and the equation that produced the ceiling it is a percentage of. The bands in the table above are ACSM's published classification of relative intensity: below 57 percent of maximum is very light, 57 to 63 is light, 64 to 76 is moderate, 77 to 95 is vigorous, and 96 percent or more is near-maximal to maximal.

Which equation the table uses, and why the column beside it exists

The main column uses Tanaka 2001, which pooled 351 studies covering 18,712 subjects and cross-validated the result in 514 more. The Fox column, 220 minus age, is there because it is the figure most people arrive holding and because it disagrees: the two cross at exactly age 40, where both give 180 bpm, and part company either side of it. Gulati 2010, derived in 5,437 asymptomatic women, gives lower figures again at every adult age - 162 bpm at 50 against Tanaka's 173 - and its authors reported that male-derived equations overestimate peak heart rate for women of the same age.

The ten-beat band that belongs around every row

Robergs and Landwehr report a standard error of estimate of 7 to 11 beats per minute across two decades of maximum heart rate prediction research, and Gulati 2010 reports about 9 bpm for its own equation. This site therefore renders every predicted maximum inside a 10 bpm band. At a predicted 173 bpm that band is a 12 percent span, which is wider than the difference between two adjacent rows of the table. Only a supervised maximal exercise test measures a maximum heart rate; an age equation estimates the average of a population that shares your birthday.

A percentage of maximum is not a percentage of heart-rate reserve

The Karvonen method scales the span between your resting and maximum rates rather than the maximum alone: target = (HRmax - HRrest) x intensity + HRrest. The two give different answers at the same nominal intensity, and not by a little. At a maximum of 190 with a resting rate of 60, 70 percent through Karvonen is 151 bpm while 70 percent of maximum is 133 bpm - eighteen beats apart, describing two different quantities. Charts rarely say which one they used, which is the single commonest reason two sources disagree about your target.

Official sources

Frequently asked questions

What is a good target heart rate for my age?

ACSM classifies 64 to 76 percent of maximum heart rate as moderate intensity and 77 to 95 percent as vigorous. At 40, using Tanaka, that is roughly 115 to 137 bpm and 139 to 171 bpm. Which of those is appropriate for you is a clinical question, not an arithmetic one.

Is 220 minus age accurate?

It was never published as a validated regression. Robergs and Landwehr traced it to a line drawn by observation through data compiled from about eleven sources in 1971. Tanaka 2001 found it underestimates maximum heart rate in older adults, which is why the table prints both.

Should women use a different formula?

Gulati 2010 derived its equation in 5,437 asymptomatic women and reported that the male-derived equations overestimate peak heart rate for women of the same age. Its figure is 206 minus 0.88 times age, which at 50 gives 162 bpm against Tanaka's 173.

Is there a fat-burning target heart rate?

The proportion of energy coming from fat is highest at lower intensities and the total energy used is higher at higher ones. That is arithmetic about fuel mixture, not a training band, and no published classification names a fat-burning zone, so this site does not label one.

How precise are these numbers?

Not precise to the beat. The prediction error on the maximum is 7 to 11 bpm, so every row of the table should be read as a broad region. A single reading a few beats outside a band is not information about your effort.

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