Split your heart-rate range into 5 training zones — from your age (or measured max HR) and resting HR, using the Karvonen method or % of max HR.
Your training zones split your heart-rate range into 5 intensities, based on your max HR (220 − age or measured) and, with Karvonen, your resting HR.
Expected benefit: knowing what heart rate to hold for each goal — endurance, threshold, VO₂max — instead of training by feel.
Max HR used
190 bpm
Your 5 heart-rate zones
Training 'by feel' blurs intensities: too fast on easy days, too soft on hard ones. Heart-rate zones give an objective reference for each session — staying in aerobic base, or hitting threshold. But you need the right bounds: a generic max-HR-only formula ignores your resting HR, which reflects your fitness.
Max HR is often estimated as 220 − age: handy, but with an individual error margin of ±10–12 bpm — a field measurement stays more reliable. The Karvonen method refines it by working from heart-rate reserve (max HR − resting HR): at equal percentage, it raises the bounds for a trained heart (low resting HR). That is why two athletes of the same age do not share the same zones.
Measure your resting HR on waking, lying down, over a few mornings, and take the lowest — it is the truest. Prefer Karvonen if you know that value: your zones will fit your condition better. And if you did a field test (true max HR), enter it rather than 220 − age. Most of your volume should sit in Z2; keep Z4–Z5 for short, well-targeted intervals.