Target Heart Rate Calculator

Calculate your target heart rate zones for different exercise intensities. Optimize your workout intensity.

Two numbers drive everything here. Maximum heart rate comes from the age-subtraction rule of thumb — 220 minus your age, so 190 bpm at the default age of 30 — and heart rate reserve is that maximum minus your resting pulse. The five training zones are then built with the Karvonen method: each zone sits at your resting rate plus a fixed share of the reserve, taking 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 percent in turn. That structure explains why the two inputs matter unequally depending on which zone you read. In the warm-up zone the reserve is split down the middle, so one extra beat of resting pulse and one extra year of age push the target by the same half-beat, in opposite directions. By the top zone the weighting has swung hard: ninety percent of the answer comes from the reserve, so a year of age moves the number nine times as far as a beat of resting pulse does. Maximum heart rate itself never sees your resting pulse at all. Results are rounded to whole beats per minute. Leaving the resting field empty makes the tool assume 60 bpm rather than zero. Nothing here is measured: the age-subtraction rule carries a standard deviation of roughly 10-12 bpm across individuals, and the tool has no way to know your medication, altitude, heat load or training history. At the extreme corner of its own ranges — age 100 with a resting pulse of 120 — the reserve collapses to zero and all five zones report the same 120 bpm, which is arithmetic doing what it is told rather than advice.