How Does Muscle Recovery Time Work?

Introduction

Muscle recovery time is the amount of time needed between workouts for muscles to repair themselves for the next workout. Exercise, whether aerobic or weight training, puts great stress on skeletal muscles, causing damage. The amount of damage is related to how hard the muscles are worked, how lose the muscles were when you started (stretch and warm up time), the level of nutrition in your diet, and how long the muscles were worked during the regimen. These variables will determine how much muscle recovery time is needed.

How Muscle Grows

You need muscle recovery time to allow the muscle to heal, while in the process growing the size and strength of the muscle (supercompensation). Any time you lift weights or do strenuous activities, you do some amount of muscle fiber damage. When this damage occurs, small satellite cells outside the damaged fibers fuse together and with the damaged fibers. As the satellite cells divide and replicate, some fuse to the damaged fibers and create new protein muscle strands, while others repair and replace the damaged muscle fibers. This not only heals the damaged muscle cells, it also causes the muscle to become larger and stronger (hypertrophy). The time it takes to perform this action is considered the muscle recovery time.

Active Recovery

Muscle recovery does not necessarily mean rendering a worked muscle completely inactive. This is why many trainers recommend some form of active recovery. Active recovery involves lifting smaller amounts of weight that does not place stress on the affected muscle groups. This type of exercise increases the blood flow to the recovering muscle. Adequate blood flow is needed during recovery, since it is blood that carries the necessary nutrients and oxygen needed for the muscle to rebuild itself.

Time Frame

According to the well known muscle supplement manufacturer At Large Nutrition, most people who lift weights only need between 24 and 48 hours of recovery time for the muscles to heal and rebuild. This is why many trainers recommend rotating your workout routine to leave at least 24 hours between each set of reps on a specific muscle group. If the muscles were over-trained in a session, the resulting damage may take longer to heal and recover.

References

• At Large Nutrition: Muscle Recovery
• Muscle Growth