Heart Rate Zone Calculator (accurate, mobile friendly)

• CLICK to jump to: The Runningversity Heart Rate Zone Calculator
• What is this Heart Rate Zone Calculator for?
• Why is this Heart Rate Zone Calculator better?
• How to calculate your heart rate zones properly
• What can’t this heart rate calculator do?
• What if my heart rate zone calculator results seem wrong?
• Heart Race Zones vs Pace Zones

What is this Heart Rate Zone Calculator for?

This heart rate zone calculator estimates your running heart rate zones so that you can understand what effort level to use in your different runs. For example, if you are looking for Zone 2 calculator for your easy runs, this will give you the info you need as well as all the other Zones from 1 to 5. Note that this calculator provides a five zone model, as seen on most sports watches and apps.

Why is this Heart Rate Zone Calculator better?

This running heart rate zone calculator uses your Maximum Heart Rate and your Minimum Heart Rate to calculate your Heart Rate Reserve (this is how much your heart rate can vary). It then calculates your heart rate zone boundaries as percentages of that Heart Rate Reserve, so it’s also known as a HRR Zone Calculator or Heart Rate Reserve Zone Calculator.

Underneath the calculator, there is an explanation of what each effort / heart rate zone should feel like while running, so that you can sense-check the data in case you aren’t wearing your heart rate monitor correctly – if it’s too loose, light will seep into the gap and ruin the data – too tight and it will restrict the ability to measure the light reflected back.

How to calculate your heart rate zones properly

1. Do a Maximum Heart Rate Stress Test
2. Determine your Resting Heart Rate, either by looking at it first thing in the morning, or an average given by your sports watch
3. Enter those values in the Heart Rate Zone Calculator on this page
4. Follow up with a Heart Rate Drift Test to better determine your Zone 2 Heart Rate

To get ready to enter values in the heart rate calculator below, you’ll need to know your true maximum heart rate and your resting heart rate. The Maximum Heart Rate should have been measured in a Maximum Heart Rate Stress Test. The Minimum Heart Rate should have been measured while standing still, first thing in the morning, or use the average recent resting heart rate from your activity tracker device. If you haven’t done the Stress Test, then you could use the Max Heart Rate Calculator to give a rough estimate of your MaxHR, but it’s better to find out your own personal value from the Stress Test to get the most accurate heart rate zone calculations. Bookmark this page, schedule a stress test into your training, and then come back here to get a more useful set of results.

The Runningversity Heart Rate Zone Calculator

Calculate your Heart Rate Zones 1-5 from your Heart Rate Reserve using Runningversity’s heart rate zone calculator and remember to tell all your running friends about it:

What can’t this heart rate calculator do?

Remember that whatever values this heart rate zone calculator tells you, listening to your body is always the most important thing, so if you are struggling (effort is higher) to achieve a particular heart rate for a normal session pace, perhaps you are coming down with something, so always spend time thinking about what the physical effort related to any particular heart rate would normally be, rather than blindly following your heart rate monitor. This will help in races immensely and in interval training, with less distractions from constantly looking at your watch. You shouldn’t need a watch to tell you that you are working really, really hard! If you need more help understanding which zones to train in during the week, take a look at the personal running coaching options.

Other reasons that your heart rate might vary from normal are atmospheric conditions, terrain under-foot, dehydration and altitude, which can all have big impacts on your ability to hold a certain pace as you’d expect. Again, what’s your underlying perceived effort? That’s what you really need to replicate each time. Always be in control of your effort, rather than being a slave to your sports watch.

What if my heart rate zone calculator results seem wrong?

If you’ve found your maximum heart rate and thus your heart rate reserve, but the heart rate zone results don’t tally up to the effort levels you are feeling while running, perhaps your heart rate data is poor. If you are struggling to get anything useful, even after adjusting your watch, or using a chest strap, there’s another way to know how fast to run on your easy runs and your tempo days and your intervals – simply use Runningversity’s Training Pace Calculator instead.

Want to run faster?

Once you’ve sorted out your heart rate training zones using the calculator below, you should check out our course on how to improve running form (opens in new tab) so that all your runs become more fun. If your form is holding you back, check it out!

Heart Race Zones vs Pace Zones

Note that this is a heart rate zones calculator. I have seen people confuse this with pace zones that are sometimes shown in fitness apps. Pace zones look at the spread of different speeds / paces during your run, so can vary wildly according to conditions on the day – what seems an easy pace in the cold might be a very hard pace in the heat.

Zone 2 Calculator

In the absence of availability of a blood lactate response test, this heart rate zone calculator is a great option for determining all your training zones, including a start point for your Zone 2 boundaries. However, if you are more experienced and able to run for 75+ minutes comfortably, you should consider additionally doing a Heart Rate Drift Test. You can use the results of the calculator on this page as the start point for the Drift test and then tweak them to better determine your optimal fat-as-fuel adaptation zone. This HR zone calculator does a great job of determining ranges for your Z2, Z3, Z4 and Z5 HR zones, but we find that the boundary of the Z2 zone can be explored further. Many runners can run at a slightly higher HR than predicted and still be at the right effort for aerobic base runs. The Heart Rate Drift Test will help you tweak that low-effort Z2 range.

What are the benefits of heart rate zone training?

The most important aspects of training for endurance running (1500m+) are the aerobic energy system and the lactate anaerobic energy system. To optimally train both of these, you need to know where your aerobic threshold and your lactate threshold are. In a five zone model, the aerobic threshold is in Zone 2 and the lactate threshold is in Zone 4. So simply knowing your heart rate zones helps you target the right effort levels for your different run types. If you are always running in Zone 3, you aren’t optimally training either energy system, so using this heart rate calculator can help you adjust your efforts to become a better runner.

Other sports

This is a running heart rate zones calculator, so it’s great to calculate heart rate zones for running specifically, because the advice given in the details for each HR zone is targeted at runners, and answers the question “What should my heart rate be while running?” However, it would also be applicable as a cycling heart rate zone calculator, or for other endurance athletes to understand their zones. You would need to devise a maximum heart rate stress test for each sport because, for example cycling recruits less muscle fibres and the body is supported, so maximum heart rate for cycling is a little lower than for running. The energy systems we train are the same across endurance sports, but the heart rates for any given perceived effort might be a little different.