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Heart Rate Zones, Slow Down, Burn Fat and Unlock The Energy Within!

By Ingo Loge

Ok are you ready to get a little technical and learn a whole lot about how to tame the heart rate beast? Well here we go. A target heart rate zone can guide you to your most energy-producing state. The zone itself is just a number, a range of possible heart rates defined by an upper and lower limit. My training system is organized around these three possible heart rate images called cardio c-quences. Your mostly Aerobic pace, or MAP zone, you are aerobic and fat burning. On the other end is the speedy anaerobic, pace or the SAP cardio c-quences.

In this zone you feel noticeably challenged, in a state of greater stress and strain, with a sense of urgency and alarm. During these times you enter the anaerobic world of sugar burning, In between is a narrow middle zone that I call the most efficient pace or the MEP cardio c-quences. In this precise, precariously situated zone, you have the heightened awareness of a tightrope walker.

You must be completely focused on the moment, in the present. You must not daydream for a second or fantasize about what you see on the television screen or you might lose your balance and fall out of the zone. The MEP, the most productive and efficient mixed fuel zone, occupies the space between fat burning and sugar burning extremes, In truth, there could be a fourth zone that is a frenzied, explosive, and a flight for your life is in danger high intensity sprint.

I rarely train in this zone intentionally, and I certainly am not advocating that for most of you. There are so many methods and formulas for predicting your heart rate zones. The gas exchange and blood lactate analysis and on and on. But the most common is the 220 – your age. Your target zone lies between 70-85% of the number that represents your predicted HRmax. For example here is the THR for a 48 yr old.

The upper limit: 220 - 48 or 172 x (.85) or 146 The lower limit 220 – 48 or 172 x (.70), or 120 so you have a training zone for a 48 year old of 120-146 BPM (Beats Per Minute)

Another Formula is the Karvonen. This further personalizes your heart rate taking into account your resting heart rate. While there is a wide variance in the resting pulse of the general population, most people have a resting pulse between 60 and 80 BPM. I have seen higher from unfit people and much lower in trained athletes.

My resting pulse is around 56 and that is pretty low for a guy in his forties. These differences can affect the setting of your optimal target HR zones. The key to all this is that The Karvonen formula takes into account your resting pulse.

The key is first establishing a heart rate reserve. The reserve is simply and logically the range between your resting pulse and your maximum heart rate. So to do this you must identify your resting pulse and subtract that from your maximum heart rate or 220 minus your age minus your resting pulse.

In this formula the ranges shift down to 60-80% instead of 70-85% so let’s look at how to do this. The upper limit (220-age-resting pulse x 80) + resting pulse

(220 – 48 – 44) X (.80) + 44
(128 x 80) +44
102.4 +44 = 146 BPM

Do the same for the lower and you will see that in this case both HRmax and the Karvonen formula or HRR (heart rate reserve) are almost identical. This is not always the case when people’s resting heart rates are particularly high. So keep your heart rate towards the lower number and you will burn more fat. The upper, more sugar.

However, I do have a few specific challenges with these formulas. They are very wide and all- encompassing. The experience of exercising at the lower end of the zone can be very different from the upper end. So just putting yourself anywhere in the zones doesn’t help you distinguish whether you are burning fat or sugar.

So, to repeat what I said earlier: “there are three experiences or cardio c-quences”. MAP, mostly aerobic pace; the efficient and productive mixed fuel MEP, most efficient pace; and finally, the anaerobic, challenging, and sugar burning SAP, speedy aerobic pace; neither of the two above mentioned formulas are that helpful in distinguishing these zones.

Find Your Target Heart Rate Zone in Five Easy STEPS!

My recipe for setting your THR uses a very simple straight forward method to identify all three possible training zones. It borrows from the work of Dr. Phil Maffetone, a pioneer in the field of Heart Rate monitoring. Dr. Maffetone recommends subtracting your age from 180 to calculate your upper limit of you target zone. Subtract 10 from that number and you have a ten beat range within which to move.

To account for individual differences, he adjusts the entire zone up or down in five to ten beat increments. For healthy, well trained endurance athletes the zone moves up 5 beats. And for those just starting out it is dropped by 5 beats. And for anyone on medication or recovering from a recent illness, the rate is dropped by 10 beats.

Now using that same number from before ( 48 years old) would look like this: 180 – 48 =132. The 10 beat target training zone becomes 122-132. Now if this person is an endurance athlete they can adjust the zone up by 10 beats for a target training zone of 132-142. Maffetones equation gives us a narrow 10 beat target training zone that reflects what I call the MEP. The MEP is ideal for monitoring changes and is a fairly accurate way to distinguish the comfortable aerobic and fat burning movement experience from the more challenging SAP (Speedy Aerobic Pace), where energy production would be considered anaerobic and sugar burning.

While I retain the narrow 10 beat range of the MEP, I recommend that the MAP and SAP be extended to 20 beats. Thus, to formulate the MAP, the lower limit of the MEP is extended downward 20 beats to a range of 112 to 132. The SAP is extended 20 beats upward from the upper limit of the MEP, creating a range of 142 to 162. Thus beginning with Dr. Maffetones simple (180 minus your age) equation, you can formulate all three of your possible cardio c-quences in a matter of seconds.

Here is the Recipe!

  1. Determine the MEP Upper Limit 180 minus your age ________

  2. Determine The MEP Lower Limit Minus 10 _________

  3. Adjust the MEP zone only if you fall into one of the following categories.
    • Raise the MEP zone by 10 if you are an experienced endurance athlete (three to five hours or more per week of aerobic activity)
    • Raise the MEP zone by 5 beats if you are currently engaged in a regular exercise program, but not necessarily endurance training, ( less that 3-5 hours per week)
    • Lower the MEP by 5 beats if you are just starting out.
    • Lower the MEP zone by 10 beats if you are on medication or recovering from being sick recently.


    • If you don’t fall into any of these categories keep the MEP zone as originally calculated. Please write down your final MEP targets zones;

      MEP Lower Limit _________ MEP Upper Limit _________



  4. Calculate the Lower Limit of your MAP by subtracting 20 from the Lower Limit of the MEP

    Lower Limit of MEP minus 20 = __________

  5. Calculate the Upper Limit of your SAP by adding 20 to the Upper Limit of the MEP

    Upper Limit of MEP plus 20 = _________

    MAP lower limit ________= (-) 20__________ MEP lower limit/MAP upper limit (-) MEP upper Limit/SAP lower limit___________ + 20 = SAP upper Limit_________

  6. Write down your final cardio c-quences below

    MAP ________ to ________
    MEP ________ to ________
    SAP ________ to ________

I want to emphasize one point: No single heart rate zone formula is right for everyone. The formulas don’t know the state you are in. Only you can know that. A formula can’t tell whether you are aerobic and fat burning or anaerobic and sugar burning. Formulas are just best guesses based on general tendencies of the population at large.

You can see Max HR 220 - age formula on the Life Fitness treadmills for instance. So don’t become a prisoner of the numbers. Your goal is to have a good training experience that puts you in the energy producing state prescribed for that day. Try to stay focused on the MEP pace, it is your most productive pace and provides the maximal return from a minimal effort.

There is so much more about this, but we can’t cover it in just this short article. So, if you have any questions please give me a call or email me. Thanks for taking the time to read this, I do hope it helps you realize that “Anything is Possible”.

About the Author:

Ingo Loge Is an Exercise Physiologist Clinical Nutritionist, Chek Practitioner and the owner Of Fitness Forever Personal Training In Palm Desert, Ca. He Can Be Reached At www.MyFitness4ever.com or