What IS maximum heart rate?

[Grog]

So, I'm a 44 year old male...which means my Maximum Heart Rate should be about 175 bpm. I'm 5'7" and weigh about 170 (I think my ideal weight is about 155)

Your concerns are very common, I'm sure you'll find many threads on this forum on the same topic. (A good keyword for searching for such threads would be "220"...)

I'm a 29yo woman, my theoretical max HR according to the lame 220-age equation should be 191. With training, I'm now able to reach 200 running up hills (VERY HARD running, I must add), and more than that on the bike (205). Without training my HR was just very high anyway, it's just that now my legs are strong enough to follow my heart.

I can sustain 185 for about an hour on the run, not sure about the bike. It's not quite pleasant, but it's possible.

So,
[LIST][*]Am I putting my health in jeopardy by exceeding my Max Rate?

I do not think so, but if such efforts are a relatively new thing to you, you might want to talk about it with your doctor, and if you have any risk factor for heart issues she might want to have you take some tests. However if you've done this for a while now, I wouldn't loose sleep over it, especially if you feel no pain.

[*]What are the implications of doing this?[*]Are there any benefits?

My limited understanding is that if you work your heart harder, and then REST it (important), then it's going to improve in its capacity to work under effort. The REST part is important. That's what intervals training (which hills can be considered as) work so well.

My first year of cycling, I made a chart from my bikejournal data with my heart rate and average speed. I was pleased to see that with time my heart rate was remaining constant for a higher speed. In other words, for the same cardiovascular effort, I was going faster*. I guess that's what training is for.

NOW
Your mileage may vary. We have a family friend who is thin (but not unhealthy-thin), who has ran dozen of marathons, and who all of a sudden in his late-40s/early-50s, on a Sunday morning long run (30km), found himself having a heart attack. Turns out he had an undiagnosed heart condition. Now the guy is a sports medicine doctor, so he recognized what was going on and got himself into the hospital where he got a quadruple bypass. His doctor's take on this was that if he hadn't been so fit he probably would not have survived this, NOT that the running caused the problem.

So if you have any reason to suspect anything could be wrong with your arteries or heart, it's certainly safe to share your concerns with a specialist. However, a higher-than-predicted heart is more than normal, especially since the 220-age formula has been shown to be quite inaccurate.

Enjoy!