HesapHanem

Maximum Heart Rate Calculator

Find your training ceiling with the formula that fits you.

Result

173 bpm
87–121 bpm

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.

Sources

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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