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Your max heart rate is the greatest number of beats per minute your heart can possibly reach during all-out strenuous exercise. Maximum heart rates vary from one person to another, and while they are not an indicator of physical fitness, knowing what your max HR is can be very useful when deciding what types of workouts or training you want to do.
Below we’ll explain how to figure out your max heart rate, what to do with it, plus answer some frequently asked questions about it.
There are a number of formulas out there for calculating max heart rate. The easiest and most commonly used one is to simply subtract your age from 220. So if you’re 40 years old, your max heart rate would be 180 bpm. However, this method is flawed for a variety of reasons. It’s less accurate for both younger and older people, and also does not consider variables specific to you–most importantly genetics.
Other more detailed max heart rate formulas exist as well, like the Tanaka (208 – 0.7 x age) and the Gulati (206 – 0.88 x age, for females). While they may be more accurate for different ages, they also fail to take into account the fact that every human body is different and some people are just born with higher or lower max heart rates than others.
A better solution is to wear a device like Healy Watch that tracks heart rate continuously and will determine exactly what your own personal max heart rate is.
Calculating max heart rate is necessary for heart rate training and understanding what your heart rate zones are. Once you know what your max HR is, you can then monitor your heart rate while exercising and track what percentage of your max you hit during certain workouts and activities.
Different percentages of your max HR represent various heart rate training zones, which are useful to target depending on what your goals are. For example, as you can see in the chart below, exercising at 70-80% of your max heart rate is good for improving your overall level of aerobic fitness.
Since your max heart rate is attained by the most strenuous level of physical exertion your body is capable of, it is only sustainable for very short periods of time. For the average person, this likely falls somewhere between 10 seconds and 1 minute.
Very good athletes can often perform at their max HR for 2 minutes or so, while the world’s best may be able to for 3-4 minutes.
No. Max heart rate in itself is not an indicator of fitness. It does not rise as your fitness improves, nor is it a sign that you are more fit than someone else if you have a higher max HR than they do.
However, as discussed above, as your fitness level increases you will be able to maintain your max heart rate for longer periods of time.
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