Working out once a week enough?

[somebody336]

Work has been pretty rough lately, only time I can hit the gym is my day off :/ Is that enough to maintain my muscles?

[ECM]

If you're doing a hard, full body workout, sure.

[somebody336]

Hopefully

And by muscles, I mean weak gamer arms XD

[arcadehero]

What would a hard full body be exactly? Just working all muscles possible until you're exhausted or is there kind of a time limit to shoot for?

(I was doing a basic workout every day earlier this month until I got sick and I've been stuck with a cough since, made it a little hard to keep going)

[ECM]

Basically it would involve going all out on six exercises or so (this is not optimal for a variety of reasons, but it'll keep you from deteriorating).

That said, if you have nothing to preserve, there probably isn't much point and you're better off doing a 3-day routine for about 20-30 mins on those 3-days.

(This all assumes you're looking to build or maintain some muscle mass--if you want to just not gain weight[footnote:1]Important! If you start eating more while doing the running, you sorta defeat the purpose.[/footnote], you could just do a brisk run a few times a week. Say three times for 10 minutes or something--but I do mean "brisk", i.e. intense.)

[arcadehero]

One issue I have with certain exercises like running is my asthma flares up. Well, I need to manage how intense I go as going to brisk too soon causes problems. I'm not sure why but I have that issue more with running than other exercises but it could be that running is more intense than most work-outs I will try. I should get my bicycle fixed and give that a go now that the weather is semi-warm now.

[ECM]

I have a cure for this: don't do cardio; I don't.

You do *NOT* have to do cardio to lose weight. You can 'only' lift weights and watch what you eat to get in shape.