Everything you need to know about your heart rate
Your health expert: Dr Luke Powles, Associate Clinical Director, Bupa Health Clinics
Publish date: 27 January 2026
Next review: January 2027
As the UK’s interest in heart rates increases, Dr Luke Powles shares what you need to know about yours to better understand your body and how to spot causes for concern.
Your searches: heart rates
Between January 2022 and December 2024, Google searches for terms around heart rates reached new heights. The data shows:
Heart beating hard while resting
Searches increased 39-fold
Zone 2 heart rate by age
Searches increased 26-fold
Cardio zone 3
Searches increased 17-fold
Safe heart rate
Searches increased 17-fold
Most accurate heart rate zone calculator
Increased 11-fold
Zone 2 heart rate
Searches quadrupled
Why are heart rate searches increasing?
In recent years, smartwatches, heart rate monitors and fitness trackers have grown in popularity, giving us full fitness data on our wrists.
We all know how important it is to have a healthy heart, but having 24-hour access to your smart device ’s data may feel overwhelming.
If you’re working towards a health goal, like improving your activity levels or reducing your stress levels, it makes sense to learn more about your heart rate.
This can help you to pace yourself better, track improvements, reduce injury and spot irregularities.
How to check resting heart rate
If you don’t have a wearable device, or would like to check yours manually, you can easily check your resting heart rate at home:
1. Find somewhere to sit quietly for five to 10 minutes.
2. Hold one hand out in front of you, or lie it on a flat surface like a table or chair arm, so your palm faces upwards.
3. Place your index and middle finger on the inside of the wrist. Make sure your fingers are near the base of your thumb, until you feel your pulse.
4. Using a clock or timer, count how many times you feel your pulse beat for 60 seconds.
5. This gives you your resting heart rate in beats per minute (BPM).
Top tip: You could measure your pulse for 15 seconds, then multiply by four, to save time and get the full value.
What should my resting pulse rate be?
Generally, if you’re a healthy adult, your resting pulse should beat steadily, somewhere between 60 and 100 beats per minute (BPM). However, there are a few factors that could make your numbers outside of this bracket.
If you’re a keen exerciser, or are taking medication like beta blockers, your heart rate may be slower than 60 BPM. If you’re younger or fitter than average, having a resting pulse of 80 beats per minute or over can sometimes be a concern.
Sometimes, your resting heart rate may naturally be outside of the healthy heart rate bracket. If it is consistently, you should speak to a health professional, especially if you’re feeling faint, tired or dizzy. You should also speak to a GP if you feel palpitations, your heartbeat is irregular, or skips beats.
What do heart rate zones mean?
The number of times your heart beats per minute during exercise can be used as a guide to measure how hard your heart is working.
This can then be converted into heart rate zones.
There are five heart rate zones in total. The higher the zone, the harder your heart is working.
Heart rate zones
Heart rate zone 1
Just above your resting heart rate, zone 1 captures when you’re warming up for exercise or cooling down. There’s little to no effort involved, using 50 to 60 per cent of your heart’s maximum capacity. This means you could continue working at this pace for a long time, and talking wouldn’t be hard.
Heart rate zone 2
Moving up to 60 to 70 percent of your heart’s maximum capacity, zone 2 brings you to aerobic exercise. This light exercise burns your body’s fat and helps improve your fitness without tiring you too much. It’s possible to talk when in zone 2, but you may need a break to catch your breath.
Heart rate zone 3
Reaching 70 to 80 per cent of your heart’s maximum effort, your body starts to burn fat, carbohydrates and protein to fuel moderately challenging movement. It’s hard to talk when you’re working out in zone 3.
Heart rate zone 4
Exercising in this zone is classed as high intensity, meaning it would be hard to sustain your effort for more than 15 minutes. Calorie burn becomes higher, so your body burns its carbohydrates and protein reserves to fuel you. It’s very hard to catch your breath to talk.
Heart rate zone 5
This is working at your heart’s maximum capacity, between 90 and 100 per cent. You can only stay in this zone for short periods of time and talking isn’t viable.
Heart rate zone calculator
If you want to work out your heart rate zone, first you need to calculate your maximum heart rate. Your maximum heart rate changes, depending on your age:
- Take your age. For example, 30
- Subtract your age from 220 to get your personalised maximum heart rate
If you’re 30, this would mean your maximum heart rate is 190
Working out your heart rate zone
Once you know your maximum heart rate, you can work out your current heart rate zone. It takes a little calculation, so if you don’t have a smart watch, here’s how you do it manually:
- Divide your current heart rate by your maximum heart rate
- Multiply this value by 100 to get your heart zone percentage
Example for a 30 year-old with a heart rate of 100 BPM, and a maximum heart rate of 190 BPM:
- 100 (current heart rate) divided by 190 (maximum heart rate) equals 0.53
- 0.53 multiplied by 100 is 53
- 53 per cent of your heart’s maximum rate means you’re working in zone 1.
Example for a 30-year-old with a heart rate of 180 BPM and a maximum heart rate of 190 BPM:
- 180 (current heart rate) divided by 190 (maximum heart rate) equals 0.94
- 0.94 multiplied by 100 is 94.7
- 94 per cent of your heart’s maximum rate means you’re working in zone 5
Heart rate zone training
If you’re trying to improve your fitness levels, you may think that working at the harder effort levels, or higher rate zones, would be the way to do it.
However, lower heart rate zones can also offer a lot of benefits, too. Zones one, two and three are great for burning fat and building endurance.
Higher zones
The harder you work during exercise, the more pressure it places on your heart. Zones four and five mean your body can’t take in enough oxygen to burn fat. When your body can’t burn fat, it instead needs to burn carbohydrate and protein reserves.
Slow and steady
If you want to improve your fitness, heart health and maintain a healthy weight, any movement is better than none. However, it’s better to spend longer periods in zones one to three, rather than pushing yourself to the higher levels frequently.
Don’t max out
You shouldn’t spend too long working out at or near your maximum heart rate – even athletes only spend a few workout minutes in zone five. If you wear a fitness tracker, looking at your data during your workout can help you to reduce effort where needed to lower your heart rate.
Make it count
Aim to spend at least 150 minutes of your week doing exercise that raises your heart rate and makes you sweat. If you prefer to exercise in shorter, more strenuous bursts, you’ll only need to do 75 minutes of vigorous exercise each week.
Why muscle matters
Dedicate parts of your week to strength-training too. This is great for boosting your metabolic rate. If you have a better metabolic rate, your muscle mass increases and so does the speed you burn calories.
Heart checks with a Bupa health assessment
Various heart checks are available during a Bupa health assessment, which may include:
Predicting your maximum heart rate
Heart rhythm screening
Blood pressure
Heart health risks assessment
