Maximum Heart Rate Calculator

Reviewed by the CalculatorHub team, edited by James Graham. Method from CDC Physical Activity Basics. Last verified 2026-06-23.

The Maximum Heart Rate Calculator computes maximum heart rate from the relation maximum heart rate = 220 - age (beats per minute). It takes a single input (age in years) and returns the maximum heart rate. These calculators are for anyone keeping an eye on their own eating, drinking, activity or body measurements, and for coaches, trainers and anyone working through the same figures on behalf of someone else; the result is a starting point for a practical decision such as setting a daily intake, pacing a session, judging a portion, or checking whether a weight or fitness goal is realistic before committing to it. Enter your values below and the result updates instantly, and you can share a permalink that pre-fills the exact calculation. Type each figure in the unit named on its own field, because these tools variously ask for kilograms or pounds, centimetres or metres, millilitres, calories and minutes, and a value typed in the wrong unit still returns an answer that looks perfectly plausible; where a tool asks you to choose a factor rather than measure one, such as an activity level, a MET value, a stride length or a share of calories, that choice moves the result far more than a small measurement error will, so keep it consistent whenever you compare one run against another. For example, with age = 50 years, the maximum heart rate works out to 170, and the worked example further down the page shows every step so you can follow the arithmetic and reproduce it by hand. The method is the standard form documented by CDC Physical Activity Basics, and the figure above each result carries the date it was last verified. None of these formulas can see the individual behind the numbers: the energy and activity figures rely on conversion factors that hold on average but vary a good deal from one person to the next, and the body measurement results describe a ratio or a range rather than a state of health, so nothing here accounts for muscle mass, body composition, medical conditions, medication, pregnancy or, for children and adolescents, normal growth and development; use the figure as background for a conversation with a doctor, dietitian or other qualified health professional, not as a target to act on by itself.