Muscle recovery plays a central role in your progress, whether you're into bodybuilding, calisthenics, general fitness or endurance sports. In fact, the faster you recover, the more training sessions you'll be able to keep up.
But how quickly do muscles recover from physical exertion? As you'll understand, it's difficult for us to give you a clear-cut answer.
Many factors come into play, including the intensity of your training, your diet and your state of health. Although we sometimes hear that specialists estimate thatit takes between 24 and 48 hours for your muscles to recover from a workout, the truth is often more nuanced.
These statements must be treated with caution, as mass gain and muscle strengthening are the result of a complex physiological adaptation. The recovery time required varies according to the athlete's training and diet.
Suitable food supplements, particularly protein powders, enable the body to repair damaged muscle fibres more quickly. To reduce muscle trauma, and especially in the context of fitness training, athletes also need to pay attention to their rest periods between sets.
This is referred to as "rest time" and, of course, there are a number of rules to be observed. Here are our tips for optimizing your recovery during and after the session.
Muscle recovery: what you need to understand
Bodybuilding sessions, and sporting activities in general, are hard on the body. Physical effort naturally triggers a series of metabolic cascades designed to adapt the body, and in particular the muscles, to the effort just made.
Roughly speaking, in the post-exercise phase, after a situation of muscular catabolism (energy consumption, muscular stress), the body will adapt by producing more powerful, larger (anabolic) and/or longer-lasting muscle fibers, depending on the type of stimulation.
This second stage corresponds to the recovery phase and, as mentioned above, its duration depends on a number of factors. The intensity of exercise, the nature of your training and your level of practice in the sport concerned will influence the extent of "micro lesions" and therefore the time required for physiological recovery to a basal, trained state.
Likewise, your lifestyle, your pre-exercise physical fitness and your diet directly affect your body's ability to recover from these traumas.
Good to know: to achieve this physiological recovery and synthesis of new tissues, the body uses proteins supplied by the diet. That's why it's crucial to meet your protein needs, particularly with nutritional supplements such as whey.
How long does it take to recover from a training session?
Specialists consider thatit takes between 24 and 48 hours for a muscle group to recover from a physical ordeal. In truth, this information is only an indication. As we have pointed out, many factors come into play and, ultimately, recovery time varies from person to person.
Recovery time will obviously depend on the nature of the effort. For example, it takes a trained athlete almost a month to fully recover from an ultra-trail race.
In the case of fitness or endurance sports, how do you know if you can work a particular muscle group again? Well, beyond all the scientific data, sometimes you simply have to use common sense and rely on the aches and pains and fatigue you feel.
Rather unpleasant, aches and pains allow us, for example, to perceive the micro-tears suffered by our muscles.
Apart from any particular inflammatory or neurological disease, it's important to remember that aches and pains, and particularly muscular pains, are the body's way of ensuring that you don't push yourself too hard and risk more serious injury. As long as you feel them, it's best to take it easy, and change muscle groups to avoid the risk of injury.
For beginners, muscle soreness may persist for a few days. After that, they persist for just one or two days, until they disappear completely as you get used to your training program.
The presence or absence of muscle soreness is NOT directly linked to the quality of a workout or its ability to stimulate muscles more or less correctly. A well-trained athlete will have no aches or pains, even after a very intense muscle session, during which he or she has worked the muscles effectively.
Good to know: after an intense or unusual effort, after which aches and pains may appear, taking whey post-exercise can greatly reduce their appearance. Protein powder is very important in this case, to help the body recover and relieve aches and pains. So watch your protein intake and prefer naturally complete protein powders such as whey. In addition, choose the right time to take your shaker to help you recover.
In any case, recovery time is destined to become shorter as the level of training increases, as the body gradually adapts to the effort involved. For beginners, the beneficial effects of sport will be felt very quickly.
After a week or two, you'll feel less out of breath at the same intensity and have more stamina. On the other hand, you'll need to practice for a month or more before the results can be seen visually, in terms of your figure.
Should I rest to speed up recovery?
Rest is just as important as training in a bodybuilding program or any other sport. To help your body recover, you need to take the time to rest.
That's why sports coaches often recommend "split routines" to novices just starting out in bodybuilding. This type of training allows you to work different muscle groups separately. This way, each muscle group has time to recover before the next session.
As we said earlier, break times will be shorter for experienced exercisers. You'll even be able to do a "full body" workout, in which all the major muscle groups are called upon during each session.
What to do on days off
Of course, on rest days, it's in your interest to rest not only physically, but also mentally. Particular attention should be paid to the quality of your sleep. It's during your sleep that the body actively rebuilds the muscles stimulated. Lack of sleep can lead to loss of muscle mass. Typically, reading or meditation are also beneficial activities.
Some physical trainers are also giving more space to "active recovery". On rest days, athletes and bodybuilders practice a gentler, more recovery-friendly sport. These disciplines often combine cardio exercises at a low percentage of MVA.
Stretching is also very welcome. As well as soothing your muscles and tendons, massages stimulate blood circulation and waste drainage, accelerating the active repair of damaged tissue.
Intra-training recovery: what is it?
Intra-workout recovery is a concept that can be found in all sports that are practiced in a "split" or during which a rest period is possible. These include strength and resistance sports such as bodybuilding, CrossFit and calisthenics. This notion poses the problem of the body's ability to regain its strength between two intense exercises during a training session.
The question of intra-workout recovery deserves your full attention. If you don't rest long enough, you'll burn out before the end of the session, and won't be able to reach the desired intensity on the various exercises.
On the other hand, if it's too long, the training will ultimately not be intense and optimal enough to achieve your results. Training will determine the outcome of your efforts, but it can also expose you to overtraining. Apart from the risk of injury, overtraining can also lead to a drop in performance.
How much rest between sets?
Intra-training recovery is partly linked to stocks of Adenosine Tri-Phosphate (ATP), the energy source used directly by muscles. The body produces ATP by mobilizing creatine, glycogen or fat reserves (lipid oxidation). Each of these resources will be used to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the nature and intensity of the exercise.
It stilltakes around 3 minutes to replenish ATP. Breaks of 3 minutes or more should therefore be considered when lifting a load equivalent to 50-100% of your max load. Studies1 have shown that short, high-intensity sets (50-90% of max load) are effective in developing absolute strength. In this case, we recommend a 3-5 minute break between each set. This makes sense, since the aim is to give the muscle its full capacity to develop maximum strength on each set.
Sets at a lower % of maximum load, with a shorter rest time (30 seconds to 1 minute), are useful for building endurance and muscular velocity. They enable you to stimulate your muscles in a different way and build up endurance for high-intensity efforts.
In any case, all these methods promote hypertrophy. Today, there is a tendency to no longer differentiate between the notions of myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. These concepts are relatively outdated, and specialists no longer tend to oppose these notions of volume vs. mass (the famous "bulge vs. real muscle").
How long does muscle congestion last?
Muscle congestion should not be confused with hypertrophy. Congestion occurs when muscles have been efficiently used. They become gorged with blood, a sign that the body is providing them with maximum nutrients. This phenomenon only lasts 15 minutes or so in the middle of a workout, and is a precursor to longer-term muscle growth (hypertrophy).
Both long and short sets help to build muscle mass. Long sets, however, focus on velocity and endurance. Short sets, on the other hand, aim to develop maximum strength, enabling you to lift heavier loads in future sessions.
If so, what should a workout look like during a muscle lean? The question is open to debate.
Since we're trying to lose fat, we need to focus on calorie intake, which should be controlled and less important than expenditure.
It's this deficient calorie intake, coupled with a suitable protein intake and varied exercise, that will enable you to dry out and lose fat, without losing muscle mass.
There's no such thing as a "dry" workout. As with bodybuilding in general, the important thing is to have a varied workout, so as to stimulate the muscle in a different way.
Some bodybuilders don't hesitate to train differently, introducing supersets and digressive sets. When it comes to supplementation, gainers have to give way to low-calorie whey.
If this applies to you, don't hesitate to read this article on the lowest-calorie whey on the market. We'd like to draw your attention to the fact that a weight loss program needs to be carefully thought out and adapted, and should always be started as part of a balanced diet. Don't hesitate to ask your doctor or a qualified dietician for advice.
How long should you train, and how many times a week?
When considering "long" recovery and intra-workout recovery, bodybuilders also need to consider the optimum duration of a training session. A session that is too light will not produce the desired effects. On the other hand, a session that is spread out over too long a period could be counter-productive.
On this point, however, you should be aware that duration is not necessarily a relevant indicator. Athletes should focus on total trainingvolume2. One of the most important aspects of training volume is tonnage, which is simply the number of repetitions multiplied by the loads you've lifted.
Dans les grandes lignes, si vous réalisez 4 séries de 10 répétitions en soulevant 70 kg au développé couché, on obtient un volume d’entraînement de 2 800 kg au développé couché. (Cet exemple a toutefois ses limites, notamment lorsqu’on calcule sur des charges < 40 % de la charge max).
To progress, you'll need to increase your training volume week by week. Unfortunately, as every exerciser is different, it' s impossible to specify the ideal tonnage for each individual.
Other factors also need to be taken into account to set up the ideal program. You need to consider the intensity of each exercise, as well as your endurance. As you can see, increasing volume can be achieved by increasing loads or repetitions.
To leave nothing to chance, consult a competent professional coach. He or she is in the best position to look at your entire training program. He or she will tell you which exercises to perform and specify the ideal break time to achieve your goals, while optimizing your recovery.
To find out more :
- How can I safely dry out for endurance sports?
- What is raw whey?
- What are the dangers of soy lecithin?
