HIIT workouts over 40 yrs

There is certainly no issues with working out intensely over 40. However, depending on one's ability to recover, other life stresses & training history, more rest days may be needed.
It's very likely that his inability to lose weight was due to anything more than simply eating too much.

LifesPilgrim wrote: »

I've heard that doing these workouts when over 40 can actually cause enough stress to raise cortisol levels in the body and cause more harm than good. Does anybody know if this is the case and how to offset it? I've done P90x and T25 with my husband. I had good results but he wasn't able to lose any weight. Any suggestions?

Ditto to those not being HIIT. Despite the advertising trying to latch on to faddish terms that are little understood.

But a good workout should raise cortisol levels, as it should be a stress on the body as the workout tears it down in same manner.
If there is no stress - what is the body recovering from to get better at?

But the benefit of the exercise actually comes during the rest for recovery and repair, building back up - maybe stronger if diet allows.

But - if in older age, or starting from a non-fit lifestyle, and hammered the body too much - by not allowing the recovery and repair - then sure constant water weight gain could mask a lot of fat loss.
That would show up in inches going down as weight stays the same too.

Eventually you'll stop gaining water weight - though it's been reported up to 20 lbs that way - that could be 20 weeks of 1lb weekly fat loss masked by same weight.
That in itself could be stressful to some.
But eventually start losing.

Then again - if cortisol is that constantly elevated - probably means he's not getting the best from the workout either. A body under that kind of stress probably isn't being pushed as hard as it could, if it actually got good recovery.

I'll use a HIIT workout as an example. A bad HIIT workout.

Run hard for 15 seconds.
Run hard for 15 seconds.
Run hard for 15 seconds.
Run hard for 15 seconds.
Run hard for 15 seconds.

Think that last set was really as hard as the first set, never mind it may have "felt" as hard?
Think the pace was actually close?

The working out hard is alright (especially if already fit to some degree) - the over 40 just means recovery takes longer.
That's why those programs at least try to vary muscle groups being used on back to back workouts - they know.
But it still could be too much.

It's not going to change the basic math of weight loss.

The other problem could easily be that the workouts knock him out enough, that the day as a whole is burning less than before, or not nearly as much as thought.

So while the workout could add say 600 calories - he then becomes less active because more tired - to the tune of NOT burning 400 calories his day otherwise would have. That's easy to accomplish.

So the exercise only added 200 extra calories to the day.

But if the math is being done for eating level as if 600 were added - 400 could almost wipe out a reasonable deficit.

Or similar caveat - was already pretty active - and the workout is replacing time that would have been decent calorie burn already - but that other thing isn't being done now.

I'm betting on recovery is bad, workouts weren't as good as they could have been, and day is more tired than normal otherwise.
All leading to not burning what is thought to be.

And the solution isn't to keep eating less - which will just cause more of the same results.
But eat more - don't make the diet so extreme in other words, let the workouts become better, and daily energy levels go higher for increased activity.

Heybales does an excellent job of outlining the larger interaction between exercise, esp higher intensity exercise, and TDEE. It also points out some of the shortcomings of video, "HIIT"-ish workouts, esp for beginners. They don't burn that many calories, esp if you don't have the skills or fitness level to push yourself, but they can beat you up and make you think you did.