Heart rate
zone calculator
Enter your age (or your known max heart rate) and get your 5 training zones in beats per minute — the same five zones your Garmin uses. Train easy days easy and hard days hard, instead of grinding everything in the grey middle.
How heart rate zones work
Your zones are percentages of your maximum heart rate. Most runners spend too much time in Zone 3 — too hard to recover from, too easy to build real speed. The fix is the classic 80/20 split: roughly 80% of your week easy (Zone 1–2) and 20% hard (Zone 4–5).
- Zone 1 (50–60%) — recovery. Walking, warm-ups, very easy jogs.
- Zone 2 (60–70%) — easy aerobic. The bread and butter; you can hold a conversation.
- Zone 3 (70–80%) — tempo. Comfortably hard, sustainable for a while.
- Zone 4 (80–90%) — threshold. Hard; this is where you build race pace.
- Zone 5 (90–100%) — VO₂ max. All-out intervals, short and sharp.
FAQ
How do I calculate my heart rate zones?
Estimate your max HR (220 − age is the common rule of thumb), then take percentages: Zone 1 is 50–60%, Zone 2 60–70%, Zone 3 70–80%, Zone 4 80–90%, Zone 5 90–100%. If you enter your resting HR above, we also show the Karvonen (heart-rate reserve) version, which is more personal.
Are these the same zones Garmin uses?
Yes — Garmin's default is this same 5-zone percentage-of-max model. If you've set a max or lactate-threshold HR on your watch, Garmin uses that instead of the age estimate.
What is Zone 2 training?
Easy aerobic effort (≈60–70% of max HR) where you can still talk. Most of your weekly volume should live here to build endurance without wrecking recovery.
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This calculator gives general training estimates, not medical advice. Check with a doctor before starting a new training program.