Health · 4 min read

Is 220 Minus Your Age Accurate for Max Heart Rate?

Written by Muhammad Ajmal · Published Dec 9, 2025 · Updated Sep 24, 2026

Not really. 220 minus your age is a rough average for a big group of people, and any one person can be 10 to 15 beats per minute above or below it. It also tends to underestimate maximum heart rate in older adults. Better formulas exist, but the honest truth is that every formula is a starting guess, not a measurement.

Where 220 minus age came from

The formula is usually traced to around 1970 and a line drawn through a set of existing studies. It was never the product of a large, careful study designed to predict individual heart rates. It stuck because it's easy to remember. Researchers reviewing its history in the early 2000s pointed out that it had become gospel almost by accident.

Better formulas

Tanaka came from a meta-analysis of hundreds of studies plus a lab study, and it holds up better across the age range, especially for older people. Gulati was derived from exercise tests on thousands of women and tends to predict lower maximums for women than the other two. Our heart rate zone calculator lets you switch between all three.

How big is the error, really?

Even the better formulas have a spread of roughly ±10 beats for most people. For a 40-year-old with a predicted max of 180, the true max could plausibly be anywhere from about 170 to 190, and some people sit further out than that. If you build heart rate zones on a max that's 12 beats too low, your "easy" zone 2 runs will be too slow and your threshold intervals will feel oddly easy. Too high, and your easy days turn into moderate days without you noticing.

Why individual max heart rates differ

• Genetics is the big one. Maximum heart rate is largely something you're born with.
• Age lowers it gradually, by roughly 0.7 beats a year on average.
• Fitness doesn't change it much. Training lowers your resting heart rate and changes what you can do at a given heart rate, but max stays roughly where it is.
• Medications such as beta blockers lower it, sometimes a lot.

So a high max isn't a sign of fitness, and a low one isn't a sign of being unfit. It's just yours.

How to find your real max (carefully)

A lab test with a doctor or exercise physiologist is the gold standard. For healthy, already-active people, a field test can get close. One common version, after a thorough warm-up:

1. Run or cycle hard for 3 minutes.
2. Recover easily for 2–3 minutes.
3. Go again, building to an all-out final 30–60 seconds, ideally up a hill.
4. The highest reading, from a chest strap rather than a wrist sensor, is close to your max.

Don't do this if you're new to exercise, have any heart symptoms or conditions, or are unsure. Get medical clearance first. Hard race finishes also give useful clues: if your watch regularly shows 188 at the end of a 5K, your max is at least that.

A simpler alternative

If you'd rather skip max testing entirely, you can train by resting heart rate and feel instead. The Karvonen method uses your resting heart rate to personalise the zones, which reduces the impact of a wrong max. And the talk test still works: if you can chat in full sentences, you're in easy territory, whatever the number says. There's more on building zones in heart rate zones explained.

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading

• Zone 2 Heart Rate: How to Find It and Why It Works
• Is There Really a Fat-Burning Heart Rate Zone?
• What Is a Normal Resting Heart Rate?
• Heart Rate Zones Explained: What Zones 1–5 Actually Do
• How to Train for Your First 10K (With Pace Targets)