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Heart Rate Zone Calculator
Knowing your target heart rate is an essential tool to monitoring your fitness goals.
Learn how to understand your heart rate and which level you should be aiming for. With our HRmax Calculator you can estimate your maximum heart rate. Knowing your own maximum heart rate is important in your own personal exercise training. It is also of great importance for exercise stress testing to uncover cardiovascular disease. Our calculator will only give a rough estimate, and we also give recommendations on how to find your real maximum heart rate with an exhaustive exercise test.
Zone 1 - Goal: Recovery, warm up and cool down. Energy system: Aerobic (oxidative).
Zone 2 - Goal: Endurance.
Energy system: Aerobic (oxidative).
Zone 3 - Goal: Muscular endurance. Energy systems: Aerobic (oxidative) and glycolytic.
Zone 4 - Goal: Muscular endurance, lactic acid tolerance, speed. Energy system: Aerobic (oxidative) and glycolytic.
Zone 5 - Goal: Speed maintenance, development in exercise technique and economy, the effective removal of lactic acid. Energy sytem: Glycolytic, creatine phosphate.
Beyond Zone 5 - Goal: Explosive speed, power. Energy system: Creatine phosphate (glycolytic when duration exceeds 5 seconds).
Description
BASIC ENDURANCE 1 - Light aerobic excercise may facilitate recovery by boosting circulation (removing inflammatory agents) and the secretion of growth hormones. For example, walking a dog, hiking, light swimming, yard work, yoga, etc.
BASIC ENDURANCE 2 - Training in this heart rate zone is mainly beneficial for slow muscle cells and the improvement of basic endurance. Energy utilized mainly from the adipose tissue. The foundation of endurance training is laid in this heart rate zone.
TEMPO ENDURANCE 1 - Increases exertion and improves aerobic power. For example, walking uphill will raise the heart rate to this level. Breathing is heavy but steady. Significant consumption of energy reserves; there is a risk of overtraining in this heart rate zone.
TEMPO ENDURANCE 2 - Training in this heart rate zone takes place on either side of the lactate threshold and improves lactate tolerance. Breathing is heavy and laborious. Training in this heart rate zone improves fast muscle cells and recovery. Particularly useful in interval training (2:1 to 1:3 ratio of exertion to recovery).
MAXIMAL ENDURANCE - Exertion always exceeds the lactate threshold. Very exhausting and arduous. Suitable for short interval exercises. Usually requires a longer recovery period.
BEYOND ZONE 5 - Improves strenght, explosive speed and fast muscle cells. Performed as short explosive intervals (ratio of exertion to recovery is 1:4 to 1:10). For example, powerlifting, weight training, and plyometric training.
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