If you have done NROLFW

[victoria21]

I am almost ready to start Stage 2 and I am worried about the time commitment increasing in the next few stages. Right now I work out in my garage during sesame street or nap time. I try to keep it at 20-30 minutes with frequent check-ins with the kids (only one of them naps).

With stage 1 this works, but I know the future workouts take longer. Can I decrease the rest time (15 seconds?) and still get good results? Or would it be worth it to wake up early to work out? I am finally able to sleep in after a few years of early wakings so I am reluctant to do this if the gain is not that great--especially since sleep is important too.
WWYD?

[shorewife]

Yeah a few of the stages are really long. I did what you are thinking - decreased the rest time. The author says you shouldn't do that but I still think I'm getting good results.

[cactuscookies]

Stages 2-5 got pretty long, sometimes up to 75 minutes. I had a few tricks to reduce it to closer to 55-60 minutes, like skipping the interval cardio and body weight exercises at the end. I run in addition to weightlifting, so I figured I was already getting sufficient cardio in my routine. I also skipped the rests between the three ab exercises in the B workouts, so I treated the swiss ball crunch, reverse crunch, and lateral flexion as one exercise. Also, I didn't drop the rest times down to as low as 15 seconds, but I never rested more than 90 seconds. (He recommends 105 seconds in Stage 3.)

The first time I went through the program, I sucked it up and just spent longer working out. I'm going to start the program again soon, and I'm going to adapt these stages to make them a little shorter. I'm going to skip the lateral flexions, which I never felt did much good anyway. I'll probably drop the rest times down to 75 seconds or so too.

[breezy8407]

I didn't follow the long rest times quite to the T...probably not the smartest. I would wear my HRM and go more by that and blow I felt for th next sets.

[Deleted]

I did shorten the rest times, but to 45-60 seconds rather than 90. 15 seconds is not adequate - you can't lift heavy enough.

To make it shorter, I did the cardio on opposite days and occasionally dropped parts of the workout. I worked out at lunch, so it had to fit in under an hour.