What's Your Target Heart Rate?

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My Take:

If you do aerobic exercise or resistance training, or any physical activity that gets your heart rate up, you may be wondering what your safe maximum heart rate is, and where your “cardio zone,” or “exercise zone,” may be.

The answer is different by age and biological sex.

In the Target Heart Rates Chart above, from the American Heart Association (AHA), you’ll see that the general formula for every adult is:

Maximum heart rate = 220 - age

So, if you are 50 years old, your maximum heart rate (the one you don’t want to exceed when working out because it may be too much even for a healthy heart) would be 220 - 50 = 170 beats per minute (bpm).

Then, to calculate your target heart rate while working out—often referred to as the “cardio zone” or “aerobic zone,” where you are maximizing the aerobic benefits for your heart, you take 50% - 85% of your maximum heart rate, and that makes up your cardio zone:

Target heart rate (cardio zone) = 50% (max heart rate) to 85% (max heart rate).

So, in the example of the 50-year-old above, the target heart rate would be:

50%(170) to 85%(170) = 85 to 145 bpm.

In other words, once the 50-year-old gets to a heart rate of 85 bpm, they’ve entered their cardio zone and are getting good aerobic benefits from their workout.

Have a look at the article itself—it has a table for all the maximum and target heart rates by decade, and explains the difference between resting heart rate and exercise heart rate. It also explains how to take your pulse (the measurement of which is your heart rate if you are in normal rhythm).

Keep in mind, always, that any physical activity, whether it gets your heart rate into a cardio zone or not, is much better than no activity at all, or leading a sedentary lifestyle. While the target heart rate can give you a goal, the main thing is to stay in motion throughout your day, whether it’s aerobic exercise or not. Every bit is helpful to your heart and the rest of your body.

My Take:

Now, I (and the American Heart Association) have just told you that your maximum heart rate is 220 minus your age. And that is easy enough to remember.

But for women, it turns out that a female-specific formula may be more precise for calculating the maximum heart rate, which is slightly less than for men.

The formula for women is:

Maximum heart rate = 206 - (0.88 x age)

So, for a 50-year-old woman, the maximum heart rate would be 162 bpm rather than 170 bpm. And the cardio zone is still 50% to 85% of that, so her cardio zone would be 81 bpm - 138 bpm.

Now, I have done the calculations for several age groups, and I can tell you that the difference between the men's and the women’s formulas is truly minimal (a difference of just a few beats per minute), even less so with advancing age, and highly unlikely to have any impact on the function of the heart itself.

So, personally, I feel comfortable continuing to use the simple, easy-to-remember formula of “220 minus age” to calculate the maximum heart rate for myself.

My Take:

Heart health and brain health go hand in hand. As you’ll see from the American Stroke Association site above, approximately 80% of brain disease (such as stroke and dementia) can be linked to cardiovascular disease.

So, the strategies for preventing both are very similar, and include making healthy eating and physical activity a part of your daily life.

Keeping your blood pressure under control also helps prevent both heart attack and stroke, and eating a healthy diet rich in potassium and magnesium (including bananas, citrus fruits, yogurt, and nuts) can help with blood pressure, too.

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