HesapHanem

Maximum Heart Rate Calculator

Find your training ceiling with the formula that fits you.

How it is calculated

The tool needs your age in years and a choice of formula. Fox: 220 − age. Tanaka: 208 − 0.7 × age. Gulati: 206 − 0.88 × age. The result is in beats per minute (bpm), rounded to a whole number. A second line shows a moderate-intensity range, taken as 50 % to 70 % of the maximum you just calculated. If the formula is missing or not one of these three names, the tool uses Fox. Age must be above 0 and below 120. Only age goes into the equations: weight, fitness, medication and sex do not, and Gulati is simply the equation that was derived from women. These are population averages, so a person's real maximum can be many beats higher or lower.

Worked example

You are 50 years old and choose Tanaka. Multiply age by 0.7: 50 × 0.7 = 35. Subtract from 208: 208 − 35 = 173 bpm. The moderate range is 50 % of 173 = 86.5, shown as 87, up to 70 % of 173 = 121.1, shown as 121, so 87–121 bpm. For comparison, Fox gives 220 − 50 = 170 bpm and Gulati gives 206 − 44 = 162 bpm for the same age. The three estimates are up to 11 beats apart.

Try this example →

Common mistakes

  • Treating the result as your true maximum. It is an age-based average, so your real value can easily differ by 10 beats or more.
  • Comparing numbers from different formulas. Fox, Tanaka and Gulati give different values for the same age, so stay with one when tracking zones.
  • Assuming the formula choice adjusts for sex. Only Gulati was derived from women, and the tool does not ask for sex.
  • Believing a typo in the formula name will give an error. An unknown name quietly uses Fox, so check the formula that is selected.
  • Using the moderate range as a full training plan. It is simply 50 % to 70 % of the estimated maximum, with no resting heart rate involved.

About this calculator

Maximum heart rate can't be measured safely without a supervised stress test, so it's usually estimated with an age-based formula, and several competing ones exist because they were derived from different study populations: the classic Fox formula (220 − age) is the oldest and simplest but tends to underestimate max HR in older adults; the Tanaka formula (208 − 0.7 × age), derived from a large meta-analysis, is generally considered more accurate across a broad age range; and the Gulati formula (206 − 0.88 × age) was developed specifically from a study of women and tends to fit female physiology better than the other two.

Max heart rate is the foundation that heart-rate training zones are built on — trainers, cardiac rehab programs and fitness apps all calculate zones (like 60–70% for fat-burning, 80–90% for VO2max intervals) as percentages of estimated max HR, so which formula you choose meaningfully changes where those zone boundaries fall. It's an estimate, not a measurement — individual variation of ±10–12 beats from any formula's prediction is common — but it's the standard starting point used across the fitness industry when a real stress test isn't available.

This calculator estimates your maximum heart rate using the Fox, Tanaka or Gulati formula based on your age alone (Gulati being the female-derived equation — there is no separate sex input), giving you a training ceiling to build your heart-rate zones around.

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