Choose YOUR Ultimate Mix of Heart Rate Zones

Heart rate is the most commonly used method of measuring training intensities. Heart rate training zones are calculated using your maximum heart rate (MHR) and resting heart rates (RHR). Subtracting your age, in years, from 220 will give you your approximate maximum heart rate. Resting heart rate should be taken upon wakening, before sitting up. Besides age, the only other two factors that reduce maximal heart rate is endurance training and heart disease.

Recent research has shown that heart rate, oxygen consumption and exercise intensity have a strong positive correlation, however there are a number of other external factors (variables) which affect heart rate. These are dehydration, humidity, temperature, altitude, training status, overtraining, being sick, time of last meal, type of exercise and competition.

Heart rate training zones most accurately measure exercises which are aerobic by nature and it is accepted that a highly aerobic trained athlete has a lower resting heart rate than the untrained. The heart is a muscle which becomes larger and more efficient with exercise. The trained athlete’s heart rate will respond quicker to the start or cessation of exercise. For example the aerobically trained athlete’s heart rate will recover quickly after a bout of exercise. This is usually recorded during the first two minutes after the exercise bout. This is a good marker of your training status. If you are over trained or untrained you will find that you do not recover well and your heart rate will remain elevated for a long duration (longer than five minutes).

You will find that before an exercise, or at the start of an exercise, your heart rate will increase slightly. This is due to the release of hormones, norepinephrine and cortizol (stress hormones), by your sympathetic nervous system. If you are over trained then your heart rate will continuously be dictated by your sympathetic nervous system, even during inactivity. This would also cause a low heart rate variability which means that the time between each heart beat is consistent, which is not a good thing. In a healthy individual the parasympathetic nervous system dominates.

The Training Zones:

The Energy Efficient Zone – 60-70% of MHR
This zone is good for your active rest days or for your recovery periods during high intensity interval training. For the overweight individuals this zone is ideal to start off with as you can exercise for longer, therefore using a great amount of calories. For the untrained individual this is a great zone to start with as it does not place too much stress on your body yet it is enough stress for initial physiological adaptation to occur.

The Aerobic Zone – 70-80% of MHR
This zone develops your cardiovascular system by improving oxygen transport to and carbon dioxide away from the functional muscles. This training zone is the start of lactic acid formation (a metabolic byproduct from using muscle glycogen). This is the ultimate training zone for those interested in weight loss.

The Anaerobic Training Zone – 80-90% of MHR
Your lactic acid threshold (the point where the body produces lactic acid faster than it can be removed) is found here as the highest amounts of lactic acid are produced in this zone. This is due to large percentages of muscle glycogen being utilized. Elite endurance athletes predominantly utilize fat as a source of energy before moving to carbohydrate stores. With the correct training in this zone your lactic acid threshold will be heightened and therefore you will have a better anaerobic threshold (increased ability to perform with larger amounts of lactic acid in your muscles), therefore endurance performance is enhanced.


The Red Line Zone – 90-100%
This zone can only be maintained for very short periods of time, inhibiting your fast twitch muscle fibers and should rarely be reached during training but rather during competition for short periods.

You will receive most benefit from training between 60-90% of your maximum heart rate. Going either way of this percentage has little benefit as far as performance is concerned.


Clinton Wreghitt
(Sport Scientist)