Estimate your maximum heart rate from age and sex across the leading formulas, plus your moderate and vigorous zones.
Your maximum heart rate (MHR) is the highest number of beats per minute your heart can reach during all-out effort. It's the anchor for every heart-rate training zone, so a good estimate helps you train at the right intensity. The only truly accurate way to know it is a supervised max test — but age-based formulas get most people close.
The classic “220 minus age” (Fox) is easy but tends to overestimate for younger people and underestimate for older ones. The Tanaka formula (208 − 0.7 × age) fits the research better across ages and is our default. For women, the Gulati formula (206 − 0.88 × age) was derived specifically from female data. We show several so you can see the spread.
Tip: Once you have your MHR, plug it into the heart rate zone calculator to get all five training zones in beats per minute.
Real max heart rates vary by roughly ±10–12 beats even among people of the same age, because genetics matter more than any formula. If your smartwatch regularly records a higher peak than the formula predicts during hard efforts, trust the observed number over the estimate.