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Max heart rate calculator

Find your max heart rate and training zones.

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Enter Age and the Max heart rate calculator works out Max heart rate, Fat-burn zone (bpm), Cardio zone (bpm) straight away. For instance, with Age = 30 it returns Max heart rate = 190 bpm, Fat-burn zone (bpm) = 114–133 and Cardio zone (bpm) = 133–162.

How to use it

  1. Enter your values: Age.
  2. Read the result instantly: Max heart rate, Fat-burn zone (bpm), Cardio zone (bpm).

Frequently asked questions

What does the Max heart rate calculator actually compute?

It takes Age and derives Max heart rate, Fat-burn zone (bpm) and Cardio zone (bpm) from them. The calculation is live as you type, so the result updates on every change.

What information do I need to provide?

A single value: Age. Nothing else is required — no account, no file upload.

Can you show a worked example?

With Age = 30, the calculator returns Max heart rate = 190 bpm, Fat-burn zone (bpm) = 114–133 and Cardio zone (bpm) = 133–162. Those figures come from running this exact tool, so you can reproduce them by entering the same values.

What happens if I enter larger values?

It moves a lot. Using Age = 60 instead, Max heart rate goes from 190 bpm to 160 bpm — which is why it is worth testing a few scenarios rather than trusting a single figure.

What does it give for smaller values?

Scaled down to Age = 15, Max heart rate comes out at 205 bpm. The relationship is worth checking at both ends before you rely on a single result.

When would I actually use this?

Checking one clinical number against the definition that gives it meaning: a dose against a body weight, a laboratory value corrected for the albumin or glucose that distorted it, a blood pressure against a guideline's threshold table, a heart rate or a basal metabolic rate against the formula that defines it.

What is the most common mistake?

Reading the output as a finding. Every figure here is arithmetic on numbers you typed: a correction formula measures nothing, and a threshold table classifies one reading rather than a person. Blood pressure in particular means little until it has been measured repeatedly on separate occasions, and a dose worked out here is a way of checking a prescription, never of writing one.

What is the difference between the Max heart rate calculator and the Resting heart rate calculator?

This one returns Max heart rate and Fat-burn zone (bpm); the Resting heart rate calculator returns Category. That is the whole difference — open the one whose figure you need.

Is there a tool for the next step?

Heart Disease Risk Calculator is the closest one after this: Estimate your 10-year risk of heart attack and stroke with the 2013 ACC/AHA Pooled Cohort Equations (ASCVD), from age, sex, cholesterol, blood pressure and risk factors.

Where do the figures come from, and how current are they?

Each tool names the published formula it applies, on its own page: the Payne correction for calcium, Katz (1.6) and Hillier (2.4) for glucose-corrected sodium, Mifflin-St Jeor for basal metabolic rate, Widmark for blood alcohol, 220 − age for maximum heart rate, the 2013 ACC/AHA Pooled Cohort Equations for cardiovascular risk, and five published formulas side by side for body surface area. The classification tools use the guideline tables themselves — ACC/AHA 2017, ESC/ESH and ESC 2024 for blood pressure, the ADA Standards of Care for glucose — and where guidelines disagree the tool shows the reading under each rather than picking one. None of this is a diagnosis, and none of it knows the history, medication or comorbidity that decides what a number means.

Further reading

All guides →
ExplainerWhat Is Your Maximum Heart Rate?A quick estimate is 220 minus your age, but it varies widely. Here's what max heart rate means, why it's only a guide, and how to use it for training.ExplainerHeart Rate Zones Explained (and How to Find Yours)Heart rate zones split your effort into five bands, from easy to all-out. Here's what each does, how to estimate your zones, and how to train with them.ExplainerWhat Is VO2 Max?VO2 max is the most oxygen your body can use during hard exercise — a benchmark of aerobic fitness. Here's what it means, typical values, and how to raise it.ExplainerThe One-Mile Walk Test, and What a VO2max Estimate AssumesThe Rockport test turns a brisk one-mile walk into a VO2max number using five inputs and one published regression. Here is the equation, one person worked through it, and the two assumptions — a stated standard error and a genuinely brisk pace — that decide whether the answer means anything.ExplainerResting Heart Rate by Age: What's Normal?A normal resting heart rate for adults is usually 60 to 100 beats per minute. Learn what affects it, why athletes run lower, and when a reading may be concerning.ExplainerHow Heart Disease Risk Scores Work — and Why They Disagree About YouFramingham, SCORE2 and the pooled cohort equations use overlapping but different inputs and were calibrated on different populations, so the same person gets three different percentages. Here is what each one asks for and what the number means.