What Are Heart Rate Zones and How to Find Yours?

Posted on April 17, 2025 by resourcefulman

Heart rate zones are a way to describe how hard you work during a cardio activity like running or cycling. The faster your heart beats, the harder you work. So an easy run can keep you in zone 2 throughout your workout, while a HIIT workout can have you bouncing between zones 1 and 5. Read on to learn what heart rate zones are, how to use them, and some caveats you should know when training this way.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, there’s one quick thing to note: Heart rate zones are designed for cardio training. Cardio refers to exercise that involves doing the same rhythmic movements over and over again , such as running, swimming or climbing stairs. Heart rate zones mean nothing for strength training , even if you have an app or watch that tells you about them as if they matter.

Don’t worry too much about zones as a beginner.

I’ll start with a huge disclaimer. You may hear everyone talk about one zone or another, but if you’re new to working out or new to heart rate tracking, you’re actually better off ignoring the zones for a while. Pay more attention to how you feel. A workout that should be easy should feel easy, no matter what number appears on your heart rate monitor. A workout that’s meant to be hard should be hard.

Over time, if you monitor your heart rate during exercise, you will begin to notice which numbers correspond to which sensations. Knowing that you see (for example) 140 on your watch during a light workout means a lot more than knowing that your device thinks it’s “zone 2.”

Zone training is difficult for beginners for several reasons:

Your zones can be difficult to stay in, especially lower zones like zone 2. If your heart rate skyrockets into zone 4 as soon as you start running, running in zone 2 may simply not be possible right now.
Your zones may not be calibrated properly. To set zones correctly, you need an accurate maximum heart rate (more on that below), and the correct formula based on age is not guaranteed.
You have better things to do than stick to zones! Your body needs to master technique, tempo, and all sorts of physical and mental skills. Every brain cell you spend obsessing over zones is a brain cell unavailable for the more important tasks in front of you.

Remember, your watch tells you your heart rate because it’s easy to measure and display, not because it’s the most important thing you should pay attention to.

Remember that zones vary from application to application.

There is no one system of heart rate zones! There are dozens, if not hundreds of them. Some have three zones, some have four, some have five, and some have more. Even if two apps or wearables use a five-zone system, they don’t necessarily set the zone boundaries in the same places . For example, some systems set “zone 2” at 60-70% of your maximum heart rate, while others set it at 65-75%.

The various systems also disagree on what these percentages are. Sometimes this is the maximum heart rate, which we will talk about below; sometimes it is a heart rate reserve that also takes into account your resting heart rate. Less commonly, you may find zones based on other indicators, such as lactate threshold.

The most common five-zone system.

I know you won’t be happy until you see how I made a table of numbers, so here you go. It’s not the only zone system, but it works well for most purposes, and you’ll find it in several different apps and wearables. This is not the best option, but perhaps the easiest. You will need to know your maximum heart rate (MHR), and then you can measure its percentages to find out your zones:

Zone 1 : 50% to 60% of your maximum heart rate (MHR), although some systems can go as high as 65%.
Zone 2 : from 61% to 70% MHR; some systems will go up to 75%
Zone 3 : 71% to 80%, and maybe 76% to 85%.
Zone 4 : 80% to 90% and sometimes 85% to 95%.
Zone 5 : Up to 100%.

In these systems, Zone 1 is reserved for warm-up or very light recovery between intervals. Zone 2 is for light aerobic exercise, such as a light jog, which you can do for hours if you’re in good shape. Zone 3 is for activities that seem to be of moderate intensity, like faster jogging, something that will tire you out if you do it for more than an hour, but you can keep it up pretty steadily. Zone 4 is when things get intense, usually for a few minutes at a time, and zone 5 only gets you into zone 5 for a few seconds during your toughest intervals. You will not be able to work in Zone 5 for longer than this time.

If it’s a four zone system

Four-zone systems cover the same area but break it up into fewer, larger parts. They usually do this by combining the first two zones to get something like this:

Zone 1: Anything below 70% (or 75%).
Zone 2: 71% to 80% (or sometimes 76% to 85%).
Zone 3: 81–90% (or 86–95%)
Zone 4: Everything is 100%

In these systems, light-effort endurance work is typically done in Zone 1 (rather than warming up in Zone 1 and treating the workout itself as Zone 2). Zone 2 is for moderate efforts, Zone 3 is for heavy efforts, and Zone 4 is for absolutely killer short intervals.

What are your thoughts so far?

How to find out your maximum heart rate

Now that you know the zones, the only thing you’re missing is your maximum heart rate, which is the basis for them all.

These systems typically recommend that you subtract your age from 220 to determine your maximum heart rate. Sometimes they use a different formula. But these formulas are often incorrect because they give the same number for all people of the same age. We are to believe that all 43-year-olds have a maximum heart rate of 177, but in fact there are many 43-year-olds with a maximum heart rate of over 200, and it is not uncommon to find 43-year-olds with a maximum heart rate of 150. (Similar caveats apply to any age.) A person with a maximum heart rate of 200 will wonder why he is always in “zone 4” when he feels like he is in zone 2. and a person with a maximum score of 150 will wonder why he feels like he is dying when he is in “zone 3”.

So don’t rely on a formula, especially if you see areas that don’t make sense for the workout feel. Ideally, you would perform a maximum heart rate test like I described here , or make an educated guess by finding the highest heart rate recorded by your device during one of your toughest workouts.

What Each Heart Rate Zone Should Look Like

You can do a little reality check on your zones to make sure they seem correct. This is how they should feel:

Zone 1 will feel very light, as if you weren’t exercising at all.
In zone 2, you’ll feel hot and sweaty, but you’ll be able to easily continue your conversation.
In zone 3, your breathing will become a little heavier. The lower end of zone 3 is still available for conversation, but towards the top of this zone you will only be able to speak a few words at a time.
In zone 4 , you’re working hard and aren’t in the mood to talk, but you probably feel like you can continue this effort for a while—or at least a few more minutes.
Zone 5 is your absolute top speed, and you’ll only be able to sustain it for a few grueling seconds.

If you’re unsure of your maximum heart rate, try using this effort level guide for a while. When you do get to a workout that requires zone 5, give it your all and then check your heart rate monitor to see what number it gives you.

How do I stay in zone 2?

Here I’ll talk more about zone 2 , including what it is, how to do it, and why its importance may be a little overrated. Zone 2 refers to light efforts that you can do almost forever. If you’re a beginner, walking can be a zone 2 workout. For an athlete, zone 2 can be a brisk jog that they can maintain for several hours. The best indicator of a zone 2 workout is that you stop because the time is up, not because you are too tired to continue.

There’s nothing special about being in zone 2 except that it doesn’t tire you out and allows you to get most of your work done. If you find that your heart rate is gradually approaching zone 3, this is honestly completely normal for 99% of people. The more exercises you do, the more attention you need to pay to their intensity. Athletes who train 10 hours a week need to make sure some of those workouts are easy. But if you’re doing multiple 30-minute runs or exercise sessions, any intensity will do, as long as you finish most of the workouts feeling good and not completely fatigued.

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