Edited by: Danielle Abel

Heart Rate Zones Explained

The heart rate zones are based on your maximum heart rate, which you'll need to use your age to figure out. 

The basic equation to estimate your maximum heart rate is 220 - age. For example, if you're 27 years old, you would take 220-27 = 193 beats per minute (bpm). 

You can also do a progressive treadmill test to find your true max heart rate, but if you're looking for the quickest way, 220-age is it. 

Finding Your Zones

Once you have your max heart rate, you can multiply it by each level of intensity to find where your specific heart range zones lie regarding the upper and lower limits of each. There are 5 different zones, each with an upper and lower limit. You might be wondering, "how much time should I be spending in each zone?" if so, keep reading; we'll cover that too. 

Zone 1

Zone 1 involves intensities between 50-60% of your max heart rate. Zone 1 is a recovery zone. meaning, after bouts of higher-intensity exercise, you might return to Zone 1 to rest before starting another bout of exercise. However, Zone 1 is not very time efficient when it comes to getting aerobic benefits anyway. You would have to spend hours training in Zone 1 to improve your cardiorespiratory health, aerobic performance or to lose fat.  

Taking the example from above, the 27-year-old with an estimated max heart rate of 193 would have a Zone 1 range of between 97 - 116 bpm.

Some examples of Zone 1 training include:

• Walking
• Low-intensity cycling
• Hiking

Zone 2 

Zone 2 intensity ranges from 60-70% of your max heart rate. Zone 2 is true aerobic training. Using the 193 max heart rate example here, this would work out to be 114 to 133 bpm. Zone 2 should feel easy & comfortable, and it should feel like you can maintain it for a really long time. You may have heard of low-intensity steady state or LISS training; this is the same thing as Zone 2 training. Zone 2 upregulates fat burning & develops a nice long-distance aerobic base.

Some examples of Zone 2 training include:

• Brisk walking
• Low to moderate-intensity cycling
• Brisk hiking

Zone 3

Zone 3 training includes intensity ranges of between 70-80% of your max heart rate. Zone 3 is a mix of aerobic and anaerobic (high-intensity) training, so it's kind of a gray area. This zone really kinda hard, but not too hard, and where we see a lot of people do their training. 

Zone 3 for a person with a max heart rate of 193 would be 135-154 bpm. 

Zone 3 training is good for running near your lactate threshold, sometimes referred to as "threshold runs," running near your race pace. These types of runs can be helpful to include 2-4x per week if you're training for a 5k, a 10k, or a half marathon. These runs, in particular, become more important as you get closer to your race day. 

The biggest thing to keep in mind is that you shouldn't be spending the majority of your time training in Zone 3. Research has shown that a polarized approach to training is actually more effective at improving aerobic adaptations.

If you're wondering what a polarized approach to training is, it's simply where the majority of your training is polarized between lower-intensity and higher-intensity work. In a polarized training approach, you have a larger portion of your training dedicated to lower-intensity training (Zone 2 Aerobic Training) and a portion dedicated to higher-intensity training (Zone 4 or 5 Anaerobic Training). 

There's nothing wrong with doing some Zone 3 work, but ideally, it should be used closer to your races to help manage fatigue. 

Zone 4 

Zone 4 training involves hard efforts at 80-90% of your max heart rate. If your max heart rate were 193, Zone 4 would fall between 154-174 bpm. Zone 4 training is true anaerobic training because you're above the lactate threshold or above the anaerobic threshold. Zone 4 training can be beneficial for aerobic & anaerobic athletes because you're working on speed endurance here.

Zone 4 training helps build capacity in your anaerobic system to be able to handle a higher-intensity workload. Anaerobic training can help you improve strength and speed. Zone 4 training ideally should be done in intervals where you're just working in the zone for 60-90 seconds and then resting or coming back down to lower intensity zones (like zone 1 or 2) between those higher intensity efforts. 

Zone 4 training might look like:

• Running for 60-90 seconds, then resting for 3-4 minutes, and doing this for anywhere from 5-8 sets, depending on what your level of fitness is.

Keep in mind Zone 4 training can be very fatiguing, so you might want to start with just 1 set of these higher-intensity intervals. 

Zone 5

Zone 5 is true high-intensity, anaerobic training at 90-100% of your max heart rate. Zone 5 training is the most fatiguing of all zones, so you need adequate rest in order to recover & develop true anaerobic training adaptations. In order to get into this zone and recover well to get back into this zone, you might only work for 20-30 seconds at a time. Zone 5 for a person with a max heart rate of 193 would look like 174-193 bpm. 

With that said, Zone 5 training might look like:

• Running or doing resisted bike sprints for 20-30 seconds, then resting for for 3-4 minutes 

Zone 5 training helps you improve your max speed & max power output. 

How much time at each zone?

How much time you spend in each zone depends on what your goals are. So, we'll go through a couple of different examples, but keep in mind that these are just examples, and what you should be doing might be different than the examples we offer. 

5k, 10, & Half marathon runners

• Could benefit from a polarized approach to training to build a strong aerobic base but get enough exposure to develop anaerobic adaptations as well
  • Higher volume of Zone 2 training, true aerobic training
  • Smaller portion into Zone 4 & 5 training, which would be more anaerobic 
• Could benefit from a pyramidal approach to training to focus primarily on low-intensity aerobic work but then spreads the moderate and high-intensity sessions out to prevent overtraining.  
  • 70% of work in Zone 2
  • 15% of work in Zone 3
  • 15% of work in Zone 4-5

If you play anaerobic sports like field sports or sprinting, you may dedicate more of your training to anaerobic training than athletes who primarily need aerobic adaptations like short & moderate-distance runners. If you don't fall into either of these categories, then you may have to make your own training decisions based on what is most time efficient for you and what you think would work best for your goals. 

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