Maximum heart rate is better predicted as 208 − 0.7 × age than 220 − age
What is the best formula for maximum heart rate?
The finding
Maximum heart rate ≈ 208 − 0.7 × age, with no difference between men and women or by activity level. It reads higher than 220 − age in older adults.
- Authors
- Tanaka H, Monahan KD, Seals DR
- Published
- Journal of the American College of Cardiology 37(1):153–156 · 2001
- Evidence
- Read in the primary source; numbers checked.
- Source
- doi.org/10.1016/s0735-1097(00)01054-8
How it was studied
Meta-analysis of 351 studies (492 groups, 18,712 people; r = −0.90), cross-validated in a lab study of 514 healthy adults, which gave 209 − 0.7 × age.
What it does not show
A population mean. The individual spread is not in the abstract, so no ± figure is given here.
What Longstanding does with it
The app uses this formula to set the heart-rate band it counts as zone 2.