Heart Rate Zone Training | The Basics

How are you measuring your fitness? If your first thought is the weight on the scale, how many times you work out per week, your average pace when you go for a run or even how many steps you walk per day, you’re probably missing out on a major component that can be used to track and optimize your fitness journey — zone training!

WHAT IS ZONE TRAINING

Zone training is the process of exercising in different heart rate (hr) zones, which give in-depth insight into how hard your cardiovascular system is working. Each zone represents a different threshold of intensity set between your resting heart rate and maximum heart rate. The chart below shows the percentage of maximum heart rate exerted in each zone.

FIVE MAIN HR ZONES

CALCULATING YOUR MAX HR

Zone thresholds are calculated as percentages of your maximum heart rate. There are multiple ways of calculating this — the most common formula being just subtracting your age from 220. So, if you’re 45 your max heart rate is 175 beats per minute.

However, this method doesn’t take into consideration other factors such as fitness level, gender, genetics, time of day, etc. So, others opt for the Tanaka method (208–0.7 x age) or the Gulati method (206–0.88 x age, for women only) instead, although each of these also make their own generalizations.

For the most accurate max hr calculation specific to you, you can use a wearable heart rate device such as the Apple Watch. Specific apps like Workout Companions even use an adaptive hr model to learn from every workout you do and adjust your zones based on fitness level, heart rate variability, max heart rate changes, and more.