Heart-rate zones calculator
Enter your age, or a maximum heart rate you have measured, to see the heart-rate band for each of the six AKURA training zones. Free, no sign-up.
What you type is sent to AKURA only to work out your zones. It is not stored, and it never goes into the page address.
Age estimate or measured max?
From your age, max heart rate is estimated with the Tanaka formula: 208 minus 0.7 times your age, rounded to a whole beat. It is an average for people of your age, and your own max can sit well above or below it.
A measured max is better. Use the highest heart rate your watch or chest strap has recorded near the end of a hard race. If one reading is far above all the others, it may be a sensor glitch, so use a number you have seen more than once.
Heart rate is the governor, pace is the target.
In AKURA, every run has a target pace, worked out from your TAEI (AKURA Endurance Index). Your heart rate tells you what that pace is costing you today. Heat, poor sleep and tiredness all raise that cost, and a pace on its own cannot see them. So when your heart rate says ease off, you ease off.
In an AKURA plan, each run shows its own heart-rate target next to its target pace. That target is set for the session, so it can differ from the bands on this page.
Work out your TAEI and training paces in the race calculator
The 80/20 split
Easy: about 80%Hard: about 20%
In an AKURA plan, about 80% of your training is easy (Active recovery, Foundation, Endurance) and about 20% is hard (Threshold, Power, Speed). The easy running is where your aerobic base grows: you can do a lot of it without breaking down. The small hard share lifts your threshold and your top end. More hard running than that mostly adds fatigue.
Heart rate keeps easy days easy. If it climbs above the band for the zone you are running in, slow down until it settles.
Training guide, not medical advice.
Train by heart rate with a plan built for you
AKURA builds your plan from your own runs and shows a heart-rate target next to the target pace on your runs. Not sure where to start? Answer a few questions to find your plan.