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Max Heart Rate Calculator: Tanaka Formula by Age

Enter your age and get an age-predicted maximal heart rate from the Tanaka equation, the formula built from 18,712 subjects that replaced 220 minus age in most exercise physiology texts. The page shows the error bar around the number, compares the three common formulas, and explains how the result feeds training zones.

  • Calculator
  • About 3 min
  • Tanaka 2001 equation
  • Runs in your browser, nothing is sent
  • Medical review: Medical review pending
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What this calculator works out

Maximal heart rate is the fastest your heart can beat during all-out effort. It falls with age in a predictable way, which is why a formula can estimate it, and it varies between people of the same age by about ten beats either way, which is why the estimate is a planning number rather than a measurement.

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    Age-predicted maximal heart rate

    The headline number: 208 minus 0.7 times your age, in beats per minute, from the Tanaka, Monahan and Seals meta-analysis published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in 2001. At 40 the estimate is 180; at 60 it is 166.

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    The error bar around it

    The standard deviation of the prediction is about 10 beats per minute. Roughly two thirds of people at a given age have a true maximum within 10 beats of the estimate, and about one in twenty sit more than 20 beats away. The result explains what that spread means for zone training.

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    How the three common formulas differ

    The page lays out 220 minus age (Fox 1971), Tanaka (208 minus 0.7 x age) and Gellish (207 minus 0.7 x age) side by side, with where each came from and where they disagree. Only Tanaka is computed; the others are shown so you can see why the numbers on other calculators differ.

How this compares with a typical online quiz

FeatureTypical free quizRegenerated.com
Formula named and sourcedUsually 220 minus age, unsourcedTanaka 2001, J Am Coll Cardiol, meta-analysis of 351 studies
Error bar statedRarelyYes, about 10 beats per minute standard deviation
Alternate formulas compared with their originsSometimes, without sourcesFox 1971, Gellish 2007 and the HUNT equation, with citations
Explains when to measure instead of predictNoYes, including beta blockers and a graded exercise test
Feeds a zone calculatorSometimesYes, the heart rate zone and zone 2 calculators use the same equation
Answers sent to a serverOftenNever; scored in your browser, counts-only events

Three formulas and their error bars

220 minus age is the formula most people know. Robergs and Landwehr traced its origin in 2002 to a 1971 paper by Fox, Naughton and Haskell, where it appeared as a rough line drawn through a handful of earlier studies rather than as a fitted regression. It has never been validated as a prediction equation, and when tested against measured maxima its scatter is around 12 beats per minute. It also tilts: it tends to overestimate the maximum in people under about 40 and underestimate it in people over 40, by a growing margin with age.

Tanaka, Monahan and Seals set out to replace it in 2001. They pooled group means from 351 studies covering 18,712 healthy adults and fitted 208 minus 0.7 times age, then confirmed almost the same line (209 minus 0.7 times age) in a laboratory study of 514 people whose maxima were measured directly. The relationship held in men and women, and in sedentary, active and endurance-trained groups alike, with a standard deviation of about 10 beats per minute. That is the equation this page computes.

Gellish and colleagues used repeated annual treadmill tests from 908 adults in a long-running university fitness program and reported 207 minus 0.7 times age in 2007, a line that sits one beat below Tanaka at every age, with a similar spread. The Norwegian HUNT fitness study of 3,320 adults, published by Nes and colleagues in 2013, found 211 minus 0.64 times age with a standard error of about 11 beats, slightly higher than Tanaka in older adults. Gulati's 2010 study of 5,437 women fitted 206 minus 0.88 times age, a few beats lower than Tanaka for women over 40. Across all of them the disagreement at any given age is a few beats, which is small next to the ten-beat spread between individuals.

Why a predicted maximum is a planning number

A standard deviation of 10 beats means that at age 40, where the estimate is 180, about two thirds of healthy people have a true maximum between 170 and 190, and roughly one in twenty fall outside 160 to 200. If your zones are set from a predicted maximum, they can be ten beats too high or too low for you. The sign is this: if you reach the predicted maximum easily and could keep going, your true maximum is higher; if a hard effort stalls well below it, your true maximum may be lower, or something else is limiting you.

The only way to know your own maximum is to measure it, usually with a graded exercise test to exhaustion on a treadmill or bike. For anyone with heart symptoms, known heart disease, or a long gap since vigorous exercise, that test belongs in a clinic with monitoring, not on a road. Beta blockers and some other medicines lower the maximum well below any formula, so people taking them should not use age-predicted numbers at all. Wearables that report a maximum are reporting the highest rate they happened to record, which is only a true maximum if you have done an all-out effort while wearing the device.

From maximal heart rate to training zones

Two systems use the maximum. The simpler one sets zones as a percentage of maximum heart rate: around 60 to 70 percent for easy aerobic work, 70 to 80 percent for steady tempo effort, and above 80 percent for hard intervals, with the exact cut-offs differing between coaching systems. The Karvonen method instead uses heart rate reserve, the gap between resting and maximal rate, so that two people with the same maximum but different resting rates get different zones. Karvonen zones track measured lactate thresholds a little better in most studies.

Either way, the maximum is the anchor, and the error bar carries through: a 10-beat error in the maximum shifts every zone by 6 to 10 beats. The practical fix is to use the formula to set a first version of the zones, then adjust from how a session feels and from breathing: easy aerobic work should allow full sentences, tempo work short phrases, and intervals only a word or two. The heart rate zone calculator on this site applies the Karvonen method with a Tanaka maximum, or with a measured maximum if you have one.

Methodology and sources

The calculator applies the equation published by Tanaka, Monahan and Seals in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in 2001: predicted maximal heart rate in beats per minute equals 208 minus 0.7 times age in years. The equation came from a meta-analysis of 351 published studies with 492 groups and 18,712 healthy adults, and was cross-validated in a laboratory study of 514 healthy men and women aged 18 to 81 whose maxima were measured on a treadmill. Age explained about 80 percent of the variation in maximal heart rate (r = minus 0.90), and the slope did not differ by sex or by habitual activity level. The equation describes healthy adults; it was not derived in children, in people with heart disease, or in people taking rate-limiting medicines such as beta blockers, and it should not be used for them.

How the number is produced: your age is multiplied by 0.7 and the product is subtracted from 208. At age 40, 0.7 x 40 = 28, and 208 minus 28 = 180 beats per minute. At age 25 the estimate is 190.5, shown as 191; at 65 it is 162.5, shown as 163. The result is rounded to a whole beat because the underlying precision does not justify decimals: the standard deviation of individual maxima around the regression line is about 10 beats per minute, so a reader should think of the estimate as the center of a range about 20 beats wide that holds two thirds of people their age.

The result bands are educational orientation by age group, not clinical categories; no guideline defines a normal or abnormal predicted maximum, because the number is a statistical expectation rather than a measurement. The alternate formulas quoted on this page are Fox 1971 (220 minus age), Gellish 2007 (207 minus 0.7 x age), Nes 2013 from the HUNT study (211 minus 0.64 x age) and Gulati 2010 for women (206 minus 0.88 x age), each cited in the references. They are shown as prose for comparison and are not computed here.

Medical review: Medical review pending. Last updated .

References

  1. Tanaka H, Monahan KD, Seals DR. Age-predicted maximal heart rate revisited. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2001;37(1):153-156. doi:10.1016/S0735-1097(00)01054-8
  2. Fox SM 3rd, Naughton JP, Haskell WL. Physical activity and the prevention of coronary heart disease. Ann Clin Res. 1971;3(6):404-432.
  3. Gellish RL, Goslin BR, Olson RE, McDonald A, Russi GD, Moudgil VK. Longitudinal modeling of the relationship between age and maximal heart rate. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2007;39(5):822-829. doi:10.1097/mss.0b013e31803349c6
  4. Nes BM, Janszky I, Wisloff U, Stoylen A, Karlsen T. Age-predicted maximal heart rate in healthy subjects: the HUNT Fitness Study. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2013;23(6):697-704. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0838.2012.01445.x
  5. Robergs RA, Landwehr R. The surprising history of the HRmax = 220 - age equation. J Exerc Physiol Online. 2002;5(2):1-10.

Max Heart Rate Calculator: Tanaka Formula by Age FAQ

It is a rough line rather than a fitted equation, and it drifts with age: it tends to run high for people under about 40 and low for people over 40, with a scatter of around 12 beats per minute. Tanaka's 208 minus 0.7 x age was fitted to measured data from 18,712 people and removes the drift. The two agree at age 40 (180) and differ by about 6 beats at age 20 and at age 60, which matters less than the 10-beat spread between individuals of the same age.

There is no single normal value, only an expected range. At 30 the Tanaka estimate is 187 and most healthy people fall between about 177 and 197; at 50 it is 173 with most between 163 and 183; at 70 it is 159 with most between 149 and 169. A true maximum outside those ranges is not a sign of disease on its own; fitness, genetics and heart size all play a part.

No, and it may slightly lower it. Training increases stroke volume, the amount of blood pumped per beat, which is why resting and submaximal heart rates fall with fitness. The maximum is set largely by age and genetics; Tanaka found the same slope in sedentary, active and endurance-trained groups. Reaching your predicted maximum more easily is a sign of fitness, not a higher ceiling.

With a graded exercise test to exhaustion, which is the method the source studies used. For healthy, regularly active adults a field version is a long warm-up followed by two to three minutes of all-out uphill running or riding, repeated once, with a chest strap monitor. Anyone with heart symptoms, diagnosed heart disease, high blood pressure that is not controlled, or a long gap since hard exercise should have the test done in a clinic with monitoring, and should ask a clinician before attempting a field test.

No. Beta blockers, and to a lesser degree some calcium channel blockers and other rate-limiting medicines, cap the heart's response to exercise well below any age formula. Zones for people on these medicines are set from perceived effort or from a supervised exercise test, not from a predicted maximum. Ask the clinician who prescribes the medicine.

Yes. Your answers and the numbers you enter are scored in your browser and are never sent to us. They stay in this browser tab so you can return to your result, and closing the tab clears them. The only thing the page sends us is a counts-only event: which test was started or completed, the result band and the headline number, with no answers, no entered values and no account. There is nothing to sign up for.

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Important: This calculator is educational arithmetic on a number you enter. An age-predicted maximal heart rate is a statistical estimate with a spread of about ten beats per minute, not a measurement and not a safety limit, and it does not apply to people taking rate-limiting medicines or living with heart disease. It is not a diagnosis and not an exercise prescription; a clinician who knows your history should guide any vigorous exercise program if you have heart symptoms or risk factors. If your symptoms are severe or sudden, seek urgent medical care.