Whether you are hitting the gym or doing any workout such as weight lifting, running, cycling, or any physical activity, your muscles need time to recover. Understanding how much time your muscles need to recover is essential for better growth, strength, and preventing joint injuries.
Let's dive deeper!
It simply means how long your body needs to repair and rebuild the tissues that were stressed during a workout or physical activity. Recovery time can be short or long depending on factors such as:
After a workout, when you rest or sleep, your body is behind the scenes doing the repair work.
We have prepared a muscle recovery calculator that helps you estimate the time your muscles need to recover after a workout or any physical activity. The following factors are used to determine recovery time:
1 to 10)It uses these science-backed scaling factors to estimate recovery time.
The calculator uses simple logic with real-world modifiers to estimate muscle recovery time. Let's consider the following example:
First, determine effort (1 to 10, where 1 means very easy and 10 means very hard), duration, soreness, sleep hours, age, muscle group and lastly experience level. Assume the following:
660 min47 hours25MediumIntermediateIn this step, multiply the RPE by duration time:
Load (AU) = RPE x Time (in minutes)Load = 6 x 60 = 360 AUNext, let's estimate the base recovery time by using the following formula:
Base = 12 (minimum baseline recovery hours) + 0.02 (scaling factor) × (360 to the power of 0.85)Base = 14.98 hoursLastly, sleep is neutral (7 hours), while soreness slightly below neutral (4 instead of 5) and age slightly younger than 30 both reduce recovery time a bit.
Finally, the recovery time is 14.3 hours, which can range between 14 and 15 hours based on the example inputs.
Recovery time varies from person to person and largely depends on factors such as age, workout intensity, sleep quality, overall fitness level and diet, but here are the typical ranges:
| Muscle Group | Light Training | Hard Training |
|---|---|---|
| Arms | 4 to 12 hours | 12 to 24 hours |
| Shoulders | 6 to 16 hours | 24 to 36 hours |
| Chest | 12 to 24 hours | 24 to 48 hours |
| Back | 12 to 24 hours | 24 to 48 hours |
| Legs | 18 to 36 hours | 48 to 72 hours |
Treat this table as a general average muscle group recovery based on light and hard sessions.
We have prepared the following muscle recovery time chart based on effort:
| RPE | Training Intensity | Typical Recovery |
|---|---|---|
| 3 to 4 | Easy | 4 to 10 hours |
| 5 to 6 | Moderate | 10 to 20 hours |
| 7 to 8 | Hard | 20 to 36 hours |
| 9 to 10 | Very hard | 36 to 72 hours |
Note that each person may recover faster or slower depending on individual factors.