Muscle recovery is the body's ability to recover from the workouts we perform at the gym, outdoors or at home. The pace of our recovery influences how much muscle and body strength we’ll be able to gain, which is why this process is so important and crucial in our development as fit individuals or athletes.
How much time should we allocate for muscle recovery?
The main factors that we should keep in mind when we recover are:
- intensity of training or exercise intensity
- the training frequency
- the training duration
- the stress level of each individual (a factor that very few people take into account)
- nutrition and care towards this topic
What do we understand by muscle recovery?
We mainly think that muscle recovery means the sleep at night, but it should actually be more than that:
- a brief moment of rest during the day (30 minutes)
- at least one day off from the gym - a day break
- 1-2 minutes break during the evening training
- sleep during the night (this is one of the most important forms of recovery)
- any activity carried out by individuals in a relaxed form
Now that we have an idea about what is muscle recovery, we can talk about this process that can be divided into 3 phases:
- 30-90 seconds of recovery between sets during training
- 2 to 4 minutes of recovery immediately after training at the gym/outdoors/at home
- 48 to 72 hours of recovery between training separate muscle groups within a workout session
The importance of muscle recovery
Muscle recovery is highly important, because it allows the nervous system to recover after the stress/intense work that follows each training session. If you don’t get the desired results after exhausting workouts, then it may be the case to think about the amount of recovery you’re giving to your body while sleeping, about the length of the breaks you take while you train, so the body is able to prepare for the next physical challenge.
