I posted this in Tips/Techniques but didn't get any takers for advice if my thinking is correct or off base. A friend says my HRT max is actually the 220-age and that it IS possible to go higher than max HRT but I shouldn't be pushing it.??????

My original postlder woman chimes in
this discussion is timely...I've been doing some googling about max hrt. I used the 220-age to come up with 'my' HRT max of 161(I'm 58.5 YO) and have been riding almost one year. In anticpation of my first century ride on 09 Sept, I decided to really push myself to do more hill climbing. I have now have a high one day of 166 and another day at 173. I was pretty winded at top of that portion of the climb but recovered quickly enough to continue to the real top. My RHRT is 55 or less. I'm wondering if I should change my limits on my HR monitor to use these new data for max. My thought being that I want to make the most of my workouts and calorie burn by keeping myself in the 65-85% range.Old versus new would be 109-139 or 113-147. Is this the right way to use HR data?