If you are a woman who exercises, get ready to do some math.

Last week, researchers at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago announced a new formula for calculating a woman’s maximum heart rate, a measure commonly used by athletes to pace themselves and monitor their progress. In a study of nearly 5,500 healthy women, scientists discovered that a decades-old formula for calculating heart rate is largely inaccurate for women, resulting in a number that is too high.

The news may be a vindication to many women who have struggled to keep up with lofty target heart rates espoused by personal trainers and programmed into treadmill displays.


The commonly used formula subtracts a person’s age from 220. But based on the data collected in the Chicago study, the right formula for calculating a woman’s maximum heart rate is a little more complicated: 206 minus 88 percent of a woman’s age.

Using the old formula of 220 minus age, at 64 years, my average maximum heart rate is 156 beats per minute. That means my pulse should stay around 132 beats per minute during my workout to achieve a target heart rate of 85 percent. I always aimed for 130; try not to exceed this due to my heart valve issues.   Hence, my calorie burn is far lower according to my Pulsar heart rate monitor watch than younger people doing the same exercise are.But based on the new calculation, my  average maximum heart rate is 149 beats per minute, meaning my desired target heart rate at 85% is just 125.8 (let’s say 126)  beats per minute, 6 beats a minute slower than under the old formula. Although the gap seems small on paper, it can be the difference between an exhilarating workout or a frustrating one that ends in exhaustion, out of breath and not performing all the exercise repetitions, because I am striving beyond the capability of my heart and lungs to work efficiently. This is how I instinctively taught myself how to run 5 kilometres, I stopped thinking of a runs a race and broke into an easy sustainable movement I call a run, I did not strive for speed, just the action and  distance. .“There’s nothing wrong with achieving a higher heart rate with exercise, and if you can maintain that, it’s fine,” said Dr. Martha Gulati, a cardiologist and assistant professor of medicine and preventive medicine at Northwestern, who led the study. “But it might be that some women are getting tired and need to stop or slow down because they’re not able to maintain their heart rate at the higher level. But they’ve been using the wrong numbers.”

I do not need to work below what I am already pushing myself to, but I now feel even more comfortable in not being concerned if my watch does not show me as burning calories like a younger person, in my work outs, I am working well within MY maximum healthy training zone for my age and female sex.

You can read the full report, here:-Formula to asses, maximum heart rate for women.