Zone 2 Heart Rate by Age: Chart, Calculator and How to Train

Zone 2 is 60% to 70% of your maximum heart rate: an easy, conversational pace you can keep up for an hour. Estimate your maximum heart rate with 208 minus 0.7 times your age (or the older 220 minus age), then take 60% and 70% of it. For a 40-year-old, zone 2 is about 108 to 126 beats per minute. In zone 2 you can still talk in full sentences.

Below: a chart for every age, how to calculate your own range, why apps disagree, how to set it up on an Apple Watch, and how much zone 2 people actually get.

Zone 2 heart rate chart by age

Age	Max HR (220 − age)	Zone 2	Max HR (208 − 0.7 × age)	Zone 2
20	200	120 to 140	194	116 to 136
25	195	117 to 136	190	114 to 133
30	190	114 to 133	187	112 to 131
35	185	111 to 130	184	110 to 128
40	180	108 to 126	180	108 to 126
45	175	105 to 122	176	106 to 124
50	170	102 to 119	173	104 to 121
55	165	99 to 115	170	102 to 119
60	160	96 to 112	166	100 to 116
65	155	93 to 108	162	98 to 114
70	150	90 to 105	159	95 to 111

Heart rates in beats per minute; zone 2 is 60% to 70% of the maximum in the same row.

Which formula? "220 minus age" is the one most people know, but a large analysis of over 18,000 people found that 208 − 0.7 × age fits better and that 220 − age underestimates maximum heart rate in older adults. The two agree at 40 and drift apart at both ends. Either way, an age formula is only an estimate: in a study of 3,320 healthy adults, real maximum heart rates were typically about 11 beats per minute above or below the prediction. Our max heart rate calculator shows several formulas side by side.

How to calculate your zone 2

1. Estimate your maximum heart rate: 208 − (0.7 × your age). At 35: 208 − 24.5 = about 184.
2. Multiply by 0.6 and 0.7: 184 × 0.6 = 110, 184 × 0.7 = 128.
3. Your zone 2 is 110 to 128 bpm. Stay in that range for most of an easy session.

If you have done a proper maximal test, or have seen a higher heart rate during an all-out effort, use that number instead of the formula.

Why apps give different zone 2 numbers

Two methods are in common use, and they give quite different answers:

Method	How it works	Zone 2 for a 40-year-old, resting HR 60
% of maximum heart rate	60% to 70% of max HR	108 to 126 bpm
% of heart rate reserve (Karvonen)	Resting HR + 60% to 70% of (max HR − resting HR)	132 to 144 bpm

Heart rate reserve methods sit higher because they start from your resting heart rate. Neither is wrong; they are different scales, and a "zone 2" built on heart rate reserve at 60% to 70% is a harder effort than one built on maximum heart rate. If you compare numbers between apps or coaches, check which method each uses. Our target heart rate calculator uses the reserve method if you want both.

The physiological definition is neither: in sports science, zone 2 sits just below your first lactate (or ventilatory) threshold, the point where breathing and lactate start to rise. A lab test finds it exactly. Heart rate formulas approximate it, and the talk test is surprisingly close.

The talk test

You do not need a watch to find zone 2:

• Zone 2: you can talk in full sentences, but would not want to sing. Breathing is deeper than at rest, never ragged.
• Too easy (zone 1): you could sing.
• Too hard (zone 3 and above): you can only manage a few words at a time.

If your watch says zone 2 but you are breathing too hard to talk, trust the talk test. Heat, poor sleep, caffeine and dehydration all push heart rate up at the same pace.

Zone 2 on Apple Watch

Apple says its heart rate zones are a percentage of your maximum heart rate, calculated and personalised from your Health data, and shown in five zones during workouts. They are only calculated if your date of birth is set in the Health app. Apple does not publish the exact formula.

To use your own numbers: on the watch, open Settings, then Workout, then Heart Rate Zones, choose Manual, and enter the lower and upper limits for zone 2 from the chart above. (On iPhone: the Watch app, My Watch, Workout, Heart Rate Zones.) During a workout, scroll through the workout views to find Heart Rate Zones, which shows the zone you are in and the time spent in each.

How much zone 2 should you do?

For health: the US Physical Activity Guidelines recommend 150 to 300 minutes a week of moderate-intensity activity (or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous activity, or a mix). Zone 2 is moderate intensity, so brisk walks, easy cycling and steady swims all count.

For endurance performance: in elite endurance athletes, about 80% of training sessions are done at low intensity and about 20% hard, a pattern known as polarised training.

How much do people actually get?

We looked at all-day heart rate data from 99 Bodly users with an Apple Watch over the last eight weeks, counting every minute at 60% to 80% of maximum heart rate (zones 2 and 3, from brisk walks as well as workouts):

Moderate heart rate minutes per week	Result
Typical person (median)	89 minutes
Middle half of people	53 to 155 minutes
Share under 60 minutes	31%
Share meeting 150 minutes (vigorous minutes counted double)	40%
Share meeting 300 minutes	16%

The typical person spent only about 5 minutes a week above 80%. So most people are not short of hard training; they are short of easy minutes. Two or three 30 to 45 minute zone 2 sessions a week would take the typical person to or past the guideline.

Get the most from zone 2

• Go slower than feels right. For many people, zone 2 running means a jog close to walking pace, or walking uphill. That is normal at first and improves as your aerobic fitness grows.
• Make sessions long enough. 30 to 60 minutes is a practical range; shorter sessions still count towards your weekly minutes.
• Keep a few hard sessions. Zone 2 complements higher-intensity work; it does not replace it.
• Track the trend, not one workout. Over weeks, the same pace at a lower heart rate, or a lower resting heart rate, shows your aerobic fitness improving. Low cardio fitness on Apple Watch explains how VO2 max fits in.

Bodly reads your Apple Watch heart rate from Apple Health and turns it into a daily strain score across the whole day, not only during workouts, alongside recovery and sleep scores against your own baseline. It is a simple way to see whether your training load matches how well you are recovering.

When to be careful

Check with a doctor before starting a new exercise programme if you have a heart condition, high blood pressure, diabetes, or symptoms such as chest pain, dizziness or unusual breathlessness during exercise. Some medications, including beta blockers, lower heart rate and make heart rate zones unreliable; use the talk test or perceived effort instead.

Sources

• Piercy KL, et al. The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. JAMA (2018).
• Tanaka H, Monahan KD, Seals DR. Age-predicted maximal heart rate revisited. Journal of the American College of Cardiology (2001).
• Nes BM, et al. Age-predicted maximal heart rate in healthy subjects: the HUNT fitness study. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports (2013).
• Seiler S. What is best practice for training intensity and duration distribution in endurance athletes? International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance (2010).
• Apple. View Heart Rate Zones on Apple Watch (Apple Support).