How Every Watch Calculates Your Max Heart Rate (10 Brands Compared)
Garmin uses Tanaka, COROS uses Gellish, Apple publishes nothing, Wahoo skips HRmax entirely. Ten brands, their formulas and zone models, in one table.
Every heart rate zone you have ever trained in was drawn from a number your watch guessed. The brands do not guess the same way, they do not agree on what the zones are percentages of, and most of them do not tell you which method they use.
Here is all of it in one place.
| Brand | HRmax estimate | Zones anchored to | Updates itself | You can set it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Garmin | Tanaka, 208 − 0.7 × age | %HRmax | Yes, raises from recorded peaks | Yes, per sport on higher tiers |
| COROS | Gellish, 207 − 0.7 × age | Your choice of threshold, reserve or %HRmax | Only via the Running Fitness Test | Yes |
| Polar | 220 − age | %HRmax, 10-point bands | No | Yes, per sport profile |
| Suunto | 220 − age | %HRmax, 5-point bands | No | Yes |
| Apple Watch | Unpublished, age required | Stated as %HRmax, community says reserve | Yes, from health data | No HRmax field, only zone limits |
| Fitbit | 220 − age | Heart rate reserve | No | Yes, custom max |
| Samsung | 220 − age, or Galaxy AI zones | %HRmax | Optional automatic zones | Yes, per exercise type |
| WHOOP | Gellish seed, then learned | %HRmax, drives Strain | Yes, from 24/7 data | Yes |
| Wahoo | Tanaka, then 88% of it as threshold | Threshold heart rate | No | Yes, set THR |
| Strava | 220 − age, or 190 with no age | %HRmax | Yes, every birthday | Yes |
Four things that table tells you
Half the industry is still on a formula from 1971. 220 − age was never derived from research. It carries an individual error of roughly ±10 to 12 bpm and is biased, too high for the young and too low for the old. At 20 it says 200 where Gellish says 193. At 60 it says 160 where Gellish says 165. Garmin, COROS, WHOOP and Wahoo have all moved off it. Polar, Suunto, Fitbit, Samsung and Strava have not.
The formula matters less than what the zones are percentages of. Tanaka and Gellish differ by exactly one beat at every age, which is nothing. But a zone placed inside your heart rate reserve sits much higher in bpm than the same percentage of your maximum. That is a real difference of ten beats or more at the same nominal zone, and it is why your Fitbit and your Garmin disagree about the same run.
Auto-detection is not the upgrade it sounds like. Garmin, WHOOP, Apple and Samsung all adjust your maximum from recorded data. A learned number can only ever move up, and optical wrist sensors throw artefact spikes at exactly the intensities where the model is watching. One bad reading installs a maximum you never reached, and it stays.
Two of them are not percentage-of-maximum systems at all. Wahoo anchors to threshold heart rate. COROS offers threshold as one of three models and, whichever you pick for display, analyses your training with the threshold zones anyway.
HRmax recomendada
184bpm
Tanaka (2001)
Promedio de los 6 modelos
183bpm
si dudas, usa este
Seis predictores publicados, uno al lado del otro (error típico de ±10–12 bpm)
| Fox / Haskell (1971) | 185 bpm |
| Tanaka (2001)Recomendado | 184 bpm |
| Gellish (2007) | 183 bpm |
| Nes (2013) | 189 bpm |
| Gulati, mujeres (2010) | 175 bpm |
| Londeree & Moeschberger | 181 bpm |
| Promedio de los seis modelosmedia de los predictores anteriores | 183 bpm |
- Recomendamos Tanaka (2001) porque se volvió a derivar a partir de un metaanálisis de 18.712 personas y es más precisa en todas las edades que la antigua regla de 220 menos la edad, que tiende a quedarse alta para atletas mayores.
- La HRmax predicha por fórmula tiene una desviación estándar de aproximadamente ±10–12 bpm, así que dos atletas de la misma edad pueden diferir en más de 20 bpm. Úsala solo como punto de partida.
- Para mayor precisión, haz una prueba de campo máxima (por ejemplo, una sesión dura de repeticiones en cuesta o un test de rampa supervisado) y lee tu HRmax real en el dispositivo.
Un PDF con tus resultados personalizados, más un código QR para volver a abrirlos cuando quieras.
Compare the formulas on your own age and you will see the spread the defaults hide.
What to actually do
- Test your maximum rather than accepting a formula. Build to hard over 10 to 15 minutes, finish with an all-out 60 to 90 second effort, take the highest reading off a chest strap, repeat within two weeks and keep the higher number. Not for anyone with cardiac risk or new to hard training. Protocol in finding your maximum heart rate.
- Enter it everywhere, including Strava, which re-buckets your uploaded data with its own setting.
- Turn off auto-detection where the brand allows it, so a sensor spike cannot overwrite a tested number.
- Move to a better anchor if you can. Threshold heart rate rises with fitness where maximum falls with age. LTHR zones is the model, and LTHR vs %HRmax zones explains why the two systems place Zone 2 differently. Karvonen is the middle option if you know your resting heart rate but not your threshold.
FAQ
Which watch brand has the most accurate max heart rate? None of them measure it. Garmin, COROS and WHOOP use better age formulas than 220 − age, and WHOOP and Garmin adjust from your data, but a tested value entered by hand beats every default.
Why do my Garmin and Strava zones differ? They hold separate max heart rate settings and apply them to the same data. Fix both.
Is 220 minus age wrong? It is a population average with roughly ±10 to 12 bpm of individual error, and it is systematically off at both ends of the age range. Tanaka's 208 − 0.7 × age and Gellish's 207 − 0.7 × age are better, but only by fixing the bias, not the scatter.
Which brands let me set max heart rate per sport? Garmin on its higher tiers, Polar through sport profiles, and Samsung per exercise type. It is worth using, because running maximums usually sit several beats above cycling maximums.
Does a higher max heart rate mean I am fitter? No. It is a largely genetic ceiling that falls with age regardless of training. Fitness is how much of it you can use and for how long.
VO2 max by brand
The same exercise, one number further down the chain, is covered per brand too: Garmin, Apple Watch, COROS, Polar, Fitbit, WHOOP and Suunto. Every one of those estimates is built on the max heart rate in the table above, which is the reason to get it right.
Sources
- Garmin, COROS, Polar, Suunto, Apple Watch, Fitbit, Samsung, WHOOP, Wahoo and Strava, each with its own first-party sources.
- Tanaka, Monahan & Seals (2001), the 208 − 0.7 × age formula
- Gellish et al. (2007), the 207 − 0.7 × age formula
- Karvonen, Kentala & Mustala (1957), the heart rate reserve method
Cover photo by ArnoldReinhold, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
