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McMillan Heart Rate Zone Calculator
Calculate your personalized training zones.
Using the McMillan Heart Rate Calculator
Enter your age, resting heart rate plus any other of the variables you know. If you have tested your maximum heart rate, enter it. If not, don’t worry, we use the latest research to estimate your maximum heart rate. If you know your threshold heart rate, you can enter it. Gender can affect the heart rate zones so enter your sex and your current fitness level is also helpful. Then, hit Calculate My Zones.
When to use heart rate training?
Your heart rate can be a good metric for monitoring your training. I find it especially helpful on easy runs where you don’t want to run too fast. I also find it very useful for lactate threshold training. In fact, it’s so helpful for threshold training that, unlike other coaches, I divide that training zone in multiple heart rate zones.
When NOT to use heart rate training?
While heart rate can be helpful in for some runs, there are times when heart rate is not a good metric. Heart rate is not helpful in hot/humid conditions as the heart rate is elevated to address the heat load and not reflective of the exercise stress.
Heart rate is not helpful for short repetitions (lasting less then two minutes) like in speed and sprint workouts. The repetition is over before the heart rate reaches a steady state. That said, some runners and coaches do use heart rate during the recovery interval as a way to track increased fitness as indicated by a faster drop in heart rate between repetitions.
