

Your target heart rate is generally defined as 50 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate, and this range is considered to be the best fat-burning range for exercise.ĥ0 to 70 percent of your max heart rate represents moderate-intensity exercise, and 70 to 85 percent represents vigorous intensity exercise. Target heart rate is often used interchangeably with heart rate reserve because they are used for similar purposes, but they're actually different. Heart rate reserve is most often used to estimate a person's ideal training zones - high-level athletes use these zones to optimize their training. Heart rate reserve refers to the difference between your maximum heart rate and your resting heart rate. Read more: Heart-Rate Variability Is a Key Health Metric That You Need to Start Tracking Heart rate reserve That is, your true maximum heart rate may be 10 to 20 beats per minute higher or lower than the difference in these equations. Because of this, the standard deviation is 10 to 20 beats per minute. Note that neither calculation accounts for your fitness level, genes or other factors. However, that equation is considered inaccurate by some scientists, and a revised formula is now often used: 208 minus 0.7 x your age. The 220-minus-age formula is the traditional way of measuring max heart rate, and it's still widely used.


Subtract your age from 220 to get an age-predicted max heart rate. The easiest way to estimate your max heart rate is a simple math calculation. The average max heart rate varies greatly according to age, fitness level and other factors, such as medical conditions and genetics. Your maximum heart rate is a measure of your heart's maximum beats per minute.
