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Sore muscles after exercise – Feeling your muscles ache or stiffen for a few days after exercise is normal and is known as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). It can affect people of all fitness levels, particularly after trying a new activity or pushing yourself a bit harder than usual.

Should I train biceps if they hurt?

Is it bad to work out when you’re sore? – “Muscle soreness occurs because both muscle and the connective tissue around it get damaged during exercise,” explains Dr. Hedt. “This is completely normal and, for the most part, nothing to worry about. In fact, this is how muscle gets stronger since it builds back a little bit better each time.” Still, muscle soreness is uncomfortable and can feel like:

Muscles that are tender to the touch Burning pain as you use a specific muscle group Discomfort that occurs as you stand, sit, squat, lift or go up and down the stairs

What’s more is that this soreness can hang around for a while. “Usually you don’t actually feel sore until about 24 to 72 hours after your workout, and then this soreness can persist for up to three days,” says Dr. Hedt. “This is why it’s called delayed onset muscle soreness, or DOMS.” (Related: No, Lactic Acid Buildup Isn’t What Causes Muscle Soreness After a Workout — Here’s Why They Do Get Sore, Though ) And despite stretching, foam rolling or using a massage gun, you might still be dealing with sore muscles by the time your next workout rolls around.

The logical question: Should you be pushing through such soreness or resting your muscles. “Working out when sore is okay as long as it isn’t affecting your movement to the point where it’s causing you to compensate and do something in a way that’s unsafe,” says Dr. Hedt. “Muscle soreness can be a deterrent to exercising, but it’s temporary and the more you exercise, the less you should feel it.

This is why staying active is so important. Usually, those who stay active aren’t going to get sore as much.” Even with soreness, though, there’s risk in following the “no pain, no gain” mantra too closely. “You never want to inadvertently turn some discomfort that started as nothing into something that can potentially increase your risk for injury,” says Dr.

Does bicep soreness mean growth?

What is Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness? – When you exercise, muscles are subject to microtraumas (tears) in response to stress. The repair of this damage leads to muscle growth. DOMS is a byproduct of exercise-induced muscle damage. It kicks in hours after a tough workout and typically peaks within 1-3 days.

How long do sore biceps last?

Sore muscles after exercise – Feeling your muscles ache or stiffen for a few days after exercise is normal and is known as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). It can affect people of all fitness levels, particularly after trying a new activity or pushing yourself a bit harder than usual.

Does bicep pain go away?

What Else Should I Know? – Proximal biceps tendonitis usually heals well in 6 weeks to a few months and doesn’t cause any long-term problems. It’s important to rest, stretch, and rehabilitate the arm and shoulder long enough to let it heal fully. A slow return to activities and sports can help prevent the tendonitis from coming back.

What does a bicep strain feel like?

Symptoms of bicep tear or strain – The most common symptom of a bicep tear or strain is a sudden burst of pain in the upper arm near the shoulder. You could also hear a “popping” sound as the tendon tears. Other signs that you may have torn a bicep tendon can include:

Weakness in the shoulder Bruising on the upper arm Inability to move or rotate your arm Change in the look of the bicep in the upper arm (it may look popped out) Muscle spasms

How do I know if I tore my bicep?

Symptoms of a biceps tear or biceps rupture – With a biceps rupture, most people report feeling or hearing a “pop” at the shoulder or elbow when the tendon breaks. People also notice:

Severe pain that may go away after a few days Bruising and sometimes swelling in that part of the arm Shoulder and arm weakness A bulge in one part of the upper arm – with a gap in the other part – because the muscle has bunched up in one section of the biceps Weakness or difficulty rotating the forearm (the motion used to turn a screwdriver)

How long does bicep strain take to heal?

It takes about 3 to 4 months for your biceps muscle to heal. You may be able to do easier daily activities in 2 to 3 weeks, as long as you don’t use your injured arm. Most people who work at a desk job can return to work in 1 to 2 weeks.

Is it bad to stretch sore biceps?

Acute and Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) – Sore muscles are a fact of life when it comes to exercising. It’s part and parcel of getting stronger and healthier. Muscle soreness develops because of microscopic damage to the muscle fibres used during the exercising.

Acute soreness is felt straight away and is partly caused by a build up of lactic acid. Gentle stretching or massaging, done immediately after the exercise, will help reduce the lactic acid and so aid recovery. Delayed-onset muscle soreness, or DOMS, occurs 24 to 72 hours after the exercise and can take up to a week to recover from.

The good news is recovery from both types of soreness can be aided through rest, improved hydration, and gentle stretching.

Why am I still sore after 5 days?

How sore is too sore? – Sometimes, sore feels really sore. Like, too-sore-to-exercise sore. “As mentioned, movement is actually a great way to help relieve sore muscles, so you don’t need to skip your workout just because you’re sore. In fact, light exercise will actually help get your blood flowing and reduce your symptoms,” says Murray.

• But what about when sore feels too sore ? Is there even such a thing? “Typically, muscle soreness peaks around day three and starts diminishing afterwards.
• If your soreness persists beyond three days, it means you overdid it — you pushed your muscles a little too hard.
• But, prolonged muscle soreness can also be a sign of an injury,” warns Murray.

If your soreness persists beyond three days and is accompanied by pain that’s sharp, limits your range of mobility or affects your gait, it might be more than muscle soreness and warrant evaluation by a sports medicine doctor. “The only time soreness means that you should approach exercise with caution is if your pain is more indicative of a serious injury than it is of exercise-induced soreness,” says Murray.

Should I stretch a strained bicep?

While recovering from biceps tendonitis, gentle exercises and stretches can help speed up your recovery and help with the healing process. It’s best to perform bicep tendonitis exercises at the direction of an orthopedic surgeon or physical therapist, to avoid making the inflammation worse,

Do muscles grow if they hurt?

Why do muscles get sore, then? – “Muscle soreness occurs because muscle and the connective tissue around it get damaged during exercise,” explains Dr. Hedt. “This is completely normal and nothing to worry about, though. In fact, it’s needed for muscle growth, since muscle is built back stronger during this repair process.” This damage comes in the form of tiny microtears, which trigger inflammatory responses.

1. So that soreness you feel after a hard workout? It’s an unfortunate consequence of both this damage and the inflammatory processes needed to heal it, not lactic acid buildup.
2. Plus, the delayed nature of sore muscles provides yet another strike against the lactic acid theory.
3. Muscle soreness doesn’t actually begin right after strenuous exercise, or even on that same day,” Dr.

Hedt adds. “Usually you don’t actually feel sore until about 24 to 72 hours after your workout. This is why it’s called delayed onset muscle soreness, or DOMS.” (Related: Is Your Pain Just Muscle Soreness or a Serious Injury? ) But none of this changes how we feel about muscle soreness.

Slowly ramping up the intensity of your workouts Using a massage gun Foam rolling Active recovery, such as walking, light jogging or yoga

(Related: Should You Still Work Out When You’re Sore or in Pain? ) Stay up-to-date By signing up, you will receive our newsletter with articles, videos, health tips and more. Please Enter Email Please Enter Valid Email

Do muscles grow on rest days?

#2 – Promotes Muscle Growth – Leading on from the importance of rest days when it comes to preventing injuries, it’s also great to know that they promote muscle growth in the body. It is a common misconception that muscle mass is created during training. Contrary to popular belief, your muscles grow in the rest period between sessions, which may give you an incentive to take more rest days between workouts (if preventing injury isn’t good enough for you!).

When we perform strength training exercises, our muscles are essentially damaged in the process. They sustain microscopic injuries and tears, which then need rest to restore themselves. Once the muscles have been given adequate rest, they then grow in mass. We have no doubt that muscle growth is one of the primary fitness goals of those who visit the gym, and that you’ll be happy to learn this if you didn’t know it already! However, we can’t stress the importance of rest days enough when it comes to this aspect of fitness.

While they will undoubtedly aid the process, a lack of rest will cause you to hit a plateau. If you train the same muscles every day, you’ll see significantly less growth in muscle mass than the person next to you, who trains those muscles 2-3 times per week. That’s not to say that training on most days of the week is bad for your progress, however. It’s more about the muscles that you work when you train. You may be asking; how come bodybuilders are so muscular? They train every day! The simple answer to this is that bodybuilders are extremely cautious of overtraining, and therefore monitor the exercises that they do.

• Speeds up muscle recovery
• Aids muscle growth
• Allows you to return to training faster (by alleviating muscle pain!)

From this, we can conclude that rest days certainly aid muscle growth, even if that means training separate muscles every day of the week. If this section hasn’t tempted you to give gym rest days a try, we don’t know what will!

Are biceps hard to grow?

“MY BICEPS AREN’T GROWING” Have you ever felt that no matter how much you trained your biceps you’re left saying “My Biceps STILL Aren’t Growing?” I believe I know exactly why and I’ll share with you the main reasons why your bicep training is failing you.

• Guys, I’ve got to be honest with you here.
• When I was younger building big biceps seemed impossible.
• I had skinny arms.
• At one point they were almost non-existent! It was through my perseverance in wanting to build bigger biceps that I made a whole hell of a lot of mistakes, but I ultimately wound up being able to increase my arm size and shape thanks to what I learned in the process.

So, what I want to do is help YOU today. I’ll tell you the two biggest reasons why your biceps aren’t growing and more importantly, I’ll help you fix it by showing you how to get big biceps fast with my 3 best techniques for bigger stronger arms. 2 BIGGEST REASONS YOUR BICEPS WON’T GROW There are two biceps training mistakes you’re probably making that may be keeping your biceps from growing.

1. Many people overtrain the biceps without even realizing it!
2. Most people have a lack of variation in bicep training techniques and I’m not talking about exercises. I mean techniques!

Let’s look at each of these mistakes in a little more detail. REASON 1: OVERTRAINING IS EASIER THAN YOU THINK A common mistake with is to think that more is better when it comes to building bigger biceps. However that’s not the case, especially since it is such a small muscle group. One function of the biceps is to supinate the forearm. Their biggest driver and function is to flex the elbow because of their attachment at the shoulder. The most important function of the biceps is elbow flexion. They also have the ability to do some shoulder flexion because of the long head’s attachment at the top of the glenohumeral joint. The biceps also contribute to shoulder flexion. It’s important to realize that any time you’re bending your elbow in any back exercise or anything you do on your upper body pull day including pullups, chin-ups, pulldowns, barbell rows, inverted rows, one-armed rows, you’re also training biceps.

1. Believe it or not, your biceps are an incredibly small muscle, occupying only a very small portion of the anterior side of your upper arm.
2. Because of all this accessory work, it’s easy to get too much volume in the biceps.
3. Any time you’re bending your elbow in any back exercise or anything you do on your pull day including pullups, chin-ups, pulldowns, barbell rows, inverted rows, one-armed rows, you’re also training biceps.

Let’s say you’re training a push, pull, leg split and training each function twice a week. If you throw any exercises for biceps in on top of that you’re actually hitting your biceps three times in that week and you’re not giving them enough time to recuperate.

• Many people’s mistake is often to continue to add more and more frequency when you are trying to build bigger arms.
• The right thing to do is to first step back, take away some volume and frequency and monitor how your body responds.
• It’s not about protein synthesis every 48 hours! It’s about giving that muscle group a chance to recover so that you can stimulate it again in a meaningful way.

You don’t want to just coast through another half-assed workout, but actually hit it in a way that leads to progressive overload. REASON 2: PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG! One of the keys to growing the biceps (or any muscle for that matter) is progressive overload.

1. Usually this comes in the form of adding weight to the arm exercises that you are doing, and increasing that weight over time.
2. Progressive overload is the gradual increase of stress placed upon a muscle during training in order to achieve growth.
3. Some people try to add more and more biceps exercises as a form of stimulus overload to build bigger arms.

But with the biceps this just doesn’t work! When we’re trying to progressively overload the biceps, it’s important we remember that they are limited in their function. The biceps have a hinge joint at the elbow that functions primarily to flex and extend the elbow. Conversely, the shoulders are a ball and socket joint. This means that exercise variety for shoulders is a lot greater than what we have for biceps. The shoulder joint has lots of different angles and planes that we can work in because of the variety of movement that the three-dimensional ball and socket joint provides.

Simply put, the hinge joint of the elbow dramatically limits our options for biceps exercises To a lot of different curls! You’re biceps curling with dumbbells, you’re curling with a barbell, you’re curling with a concentration curl, you’re curling with a preacher curl you’re freaking curling no matter what you’re doing! The hinge joint of the elbow dramatically limits our options for biceps exercises to a lot of different curls.

Take a look at all of these different types of biceps curls, and you’ll see exactly what I mean! The barbell curl is one of many curling exercises for the biceps. Hammer curls are another dumbbell curl exercise in which we are changing the angle of the wrist, but the elbow joint remains fixed as in all other bicep curl variations. The dumbbell preacher curl is just another dumbbell bicep curl variation in which we’ve changed the position of our body to emphasize a slightly different angle, but the movement of the elbow joint is still the same. With the incline dumbbell curl, we’ve changed the angle of the biceps to the body, but the curling movement pattern is the same. The concentration curl is another dumbbell biceps curl variation in which we’ve changed the angle of the biceps to the body, but the movement pattern is still a curl. You can see that the idea of switching up bicep exercises to create new overload isn’t going to work, because they’re all basically formed around the same movement at the elbow joint.

• Not to mention Most of the so-called exercises for bigger biceps are pretty limited in how much we weight we can add to them over time.
• When is the last time you actually increased the amount of weight you’ve used on dumbbell curls? If you have, how much have you really increased? Progressive overload and overload in and of itself is pretty difficult to achieve with the biceps.

You need to do something dramatically different in your arm workouts to stimulate those muscles, and that is to vary the way in which you’re performing your biceps curls ! 3 BICEPS GROWTH TECHNIQUES THAT WORK Switching techniques is far more effective for biceps growth than adding more and more training days or exercises to your routine.

I’ll show you three of my best training tips to achieve progressive overload in the biceps. The sliced reps technique will give you more time under tension and peak contraction. The arc variation technique allows you to train to and through failure by manipulating the moment arm of the biceps as you fatigue.

Finally, the In10sity technique will show you how to use heavier weights on your curls and get more high intensity reps completed in a workout. TECHNIQUE 1: SLICED REPS This sliced reps technique gives you a great deal of time under tension and time under peak contraction.

• This will help you intensify the curl and achieve progressive overload to grow bigger biceps.
• It’s on of my favorite techniques to apply in dumbbell biceps exercises,
• To perform this technique, choose a weight you can normally use for 15 reps.
• Take an underhand grip and slowly curl the dumbbells all the way to the top.

As you lower the weight, drop only 1/9 of the way. You don’t have to get out your compass or your goniometer to figure out what that is! Just drop it an estimated 1/9 of the way, and come back up to the top and contract. On the next rep, drop down a little more to 2/9 of the way, then come back to the top. The sliced reps technique increases time under tension and time under peak contraction. BENEFITS OF THE SLICED REPS TECHNIQUE:

• Increased volume within a set
• Increased number of contractions within in a set
• More time under peak contraction in the curl because we return to it on every slice
• Increased time under tension throughout the course of the set
• Over the course of the ladder, you’re getting full range of motion in the exercise

TECHNIQUE 2: ARC VARIATION The next technique in my bag of biceps workout tips is arc variation. To understand it, I’m going to give you a short physics lesson. I promise it will be short! When we vary the arc of a movement, we can change the moment arm of the elbow joint and increase or decrease the force exerted on the biceps muscle. So what does this mean when we apply it to our curls? When you perform a curl keeping your elbows in toward the front side of your ribcage and you use a long and complete range of motion, keeping your forearms as straight as possible, you’ve got a big long arc going. Changing the moment arm of the curl from longer to shorter will help you to continue to perform reps after fatiguing on the first position. Then we can drop our arms back even more into a drag curl variation that really shortens the moment arm on the biceps. BENEFITS OF THE ARC VARIATION TECHNIQUE

• Manipulates the moment arm of the biceps as you fatigue
• Intensifies the curl by allowing you to train to and through failure
• The drag curl version changes the strength curve of the exercise to occur at peak contraction instead of at the middle

TECHNIQUE 3: IN10SITY My next expert tip for bigger strong biceps is the In10sity technique. It allows you to increase the amount of productive reps you’re performing while lifting heavy. To perform this technique we’ll first choose a weight that will allow us to get to failure in the five or six rep range.

1. Then we rest pause for 10 seconds.
2. We don’t put the weight down.
3. We just rest pause, holding the bar.
4. You’ll see that after about 10 or 15 seconds you can crank out another three reps.
5. Then you rest again 10 to 15 seconds, and try for another two or three reps.
6. Then ultimately you’re getting into single reps.

If you do this for a five minute period of time, when you count the number of high intensity reps that you did with heavier weight in one five minute set, it’s going to be more than you probably did when you broke your sets up into the traditional three sets of 12. The In10sity technique allows you to complete more high intensity high weight reps in a single set. BENEFITS OF THE IN10SITY TECHNIQUE

• Allows for use of heavier weights on your curls
• Accumulates more high intensity reps in a workout than a typical 3 sets of 12

Remember, it’s not varying your exercises, adding isolation exercises or adding additional focused biceps days that will force the biceps to grow. In fact, these things may work against you! Instead, it’s the variation of the intensity techniques you’re using on those bicep exercises that will matter the most. As far as frequency goes, dial it back and see how you do. I promise you, you’ll probably see a better result from doing that than you will by adding more and more workouts. The exercises by themselves NEVER make a workout complete. If you are looking for a program that takes you step by step to your fastest and best gains ever with all the sets, reps and TECHNIQUES that produce the fastest results check out our ATHLEAN-X programs, Program Selector ==> See which program best fits your goals AX1 ==> Train at Home With Dumbbells and Minimal Equipment Ultimate Arms ==> Complete program that adds a special focus on those guns THE HIGHLIGHT REEL: 2 BIG REASONS YOUR BICEPS AREN’T GROWING

1. There are two main training errors people make that keep their biceps from growing. These are overtraining the biceps (often unintentionally) and a lack of variation in training techniques.
2. Adding additional biceps focused workouts and trying multiple biceps exercises doesn’t work. The biceps muscle is a hinge joint, so all biceps exercises are essentially just curls.
3. For this reason, changing techniques is a better strategy for biceps growth than adding training days or additional exercises.
4. There are three biceps training techniques that do work well to create progressive overload and grow the biceps. They are sliced reps, arc variation and in10sity.

Why won’t my bicep stop hurting?

The most common cause of biceps tendinitis is wear and tear. Muscles that are used a lot over time can become swollen and sore. It can also be caused by a medical condition such as rheumatoid arthritis.

Do biceps recover fast?

Be Clock Wise – Muscle & Fitness Illustration by Gavin Orpen Typically, it is counterproductive to train a muscle again before it has fully recovered from a workout. Muscle recovery entails several stages that are initiated immediately after a workout and continue for several days, depending on how intensely the muscle was trained.

• The more intense the workout, the more muscle-fiber damage and the longer the muscle takes to fully recover.
• The general rule that most bodybuilders follow is to allow a minimum of 48 hours of rest before training the same muscle group again.
• Many bodybuilders allow seven days of rest for major bodyparts.

Bodybuilding is an individual endeavor, though, and what works well for one athlete may not necessarily work well for another. Just as one training method doesn’t fit all, one recovery scheme doesn’t necessarily fit all. STAIRWAY TO MUSCLE It’s true that the easiest way to ensure adequate recovery for your muscle fibers is to refrain from training them again for a full week.

However, that doesn’t mean seven days is your optimal rest period. Not allowing adequate recovery time can be detrimental to your progress in the gym, but resting too long can also curtail your gains as dictated by the physiology of muscle recovery and growth. Immediately after you train a muscle, genes within the muscle fibers become activated, initiating many processes that lead to muscle growth.

Activating muscle genes isn’t like turning a switch on or off. There are levels of activation, ranging from very little to a lot. Most genes stay activated for only a few days after training. If you wait to train a muscle until it and its genes are completely rested, then you start from zero the next time you work out.

1. However, if you train a muscle before its gene activity returns to resting levels, you can expect greater gains.
2. Here’s how it works.
3. We’ll assign resting levels of gene activity a value of zero for a given muscle group, and gene activity immediately following a workout will be assigned a value of 100.

After one or two full days of rest, the activity might drop to 75; by the fourth or fifth rest day, it might be down to 25; after that, it might return to zero. If you train that muscle group again when its gene activity is at zero, then you’ll possibly only increase its level to 100.

However, if you train it after four or five days, when gene activity is still at 25, you might be able to increase gene activity to 125. That translates into a boost in muscle mass and strength. Then, why not train after just one or two days of rest and get gene activity up to 175? Because you still don’t want to train a muscle before it has fully recovered.

Actual muscle growth doesn’t occur until after the recovery phase is complete. To determine the exact point at which your personal muscle recovery is complete, use a recovery test such as that designed by exercise scientists at Western Kentucky University (Bowling Green).

REST TEST The researchers wanted to know how many days it took each major muscle group to recover from training. They asked experienced male lifters to perform seven sets to failure using their 10-rep max (10RM) weight for eight exercises: bench press, lateral raise, lat pulldown, triceps pushdown, biceps curl, leg press, leg extension and leg curl.

This regimen targeted all major muscle groups. Then the scientists had the subjects return to the lab each day for four days after the workout to test the number of reps they could get for one set of each exercise, using their original 10RM weight. Since studies have shown that muscles not fully recovered from a workout are weaker than fully recovered muscles, the scientists knew that if the lifters could not perform at least 10 reps of an exercise, the muscles were still not fully recovered.

• The day that the lifters could perform 10 reps would signify full muscle recovery, and the day that they could perform more than 10 reps would signify a training effect (i.e., that the muscle had increased in strength).
• Upper-body muscles recovered similarly, so the scientists grouped and compared the rep data for the upper and lower bodies.

On the first rest day, after 24 hours of recovery, the lifters were able to complete only about nine reps for the upper-body exercises and only about eight reps for the lower-body exercises. This signified that the recovery process was not complete. On rest-day two, after 48 hours of recovery, most lifters were able to perform 10 reps, but many were not.

• This means that for some lifters, muscle recovery is mostly complete after two days of rest, but for many it is not.
• On rest-day three, after 72 hours of recovery, the lifters were able to get about 11 reps for the upper-body exercises and about 10 for the lower.
• This signifies that a training effect was apparent after three days of rest for the upper-body muscles, while the lower-body muscles were fully recovered but not yet showing a training effect.

On rest-day four, after 96 hours of recovery, the lifters were able to complete about 11 reps for upper- and lower-body exercises — upper- body muscles were maintaining a training effect and lower-body muscles were showing a training effect. RECOVERING ADDICT The results from the study can be used to make general resting guidelines for bodybuilders.

It appears that upper- body muscles — chest, shoulders, back, triceps and biceps — recover a bit faster than legs do. After three days of rest, the upper-body muscles seem to be fully recovered and have undergone a training effect. Although legs have also recovered by the third day of rest, they don’t show a training effect until the fourth day.

This means that the optimal recovery period for upper-body muscles is three to four days. If you wait any longer to train them, you may lose the training effect, as gene activity will continue to decline. For legs, it appears that the optimal recovery period is four to five days (although the scientists did not test the subjects on the fifth rest day, it can be assumed from the upper- body data that legs would maintain some training effect on the fifth day).

• Waiting any longer than this before you train legs again could limit your gains in mass and strength.
• See the “Best Rest Training Split” below for a sample program that optimizes recovery periods for all bodyparts for most trainers.
• BEST REST TRAINING SPLIT

• DAY 1 (Monday) | Quads, Hamstrings, Calves
• DAY 2 (Tuesday) | Rest
• DAY 3 (Wednesday) | Chest Shoulders, Triceps, Abs
• DAY 4 (Thursday) | Back, Biceps, Forearms
• DAY 5 (Friday) | Quads, Hamstrings, Calves
• DAY 6 (Saturday) | Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, Abs
• DAY 7 (Sunday) | Back, Biceps, Forearms
• DAY 8 (Monday) | Rest
• DAY 9 (Tuesday) | Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, Abs
• DAY 10 (Wednesday) | Quads, Hamstrings, Calves
• DAY 11 (Thursday) | Back, Biceps, Forearms
• DAY 12 (Friday) | Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, Abs
• DAY 13 (Saturday) | Rest
• DAY 14 (Sunday) | Back, Biceps, Forearms

NOTE: Using this two-week training split, you can optimize gains in strength and in muscle mass. It calls for training quads, hamstrings and calves three times; chest, shoulders, triceps and abs four times; back, biceps and forearms four times; and taking three complete days of rest.

At the end of the two weeks, simply repeat the program as many times as desired. PERSONAL REST Use the results of the Western Kentucky University study to hone your training strategies and to maximize your gym progress. Serious bodybuilders will want to use a protocol similar to the Kentucky test to develop their own customized recovery schemes.

This will help to ensure optimal recovery and maximal results for all muscle groups. With the “FLEX Recovery Test” (below) as a guide, you’ll be able to design a training and recovery scheme for yourself. The Western Kentucky University research project included bench presses and leg presses, but we suggest that you use dumbbell flyes rather than benches and that you don’t perform leg presses.

We made these changes to minimize multiple-joint exercises that recruit several muscle groups. We believe that isolation exercises that target one muscle group are a better indicator of recovery for a particular set of muscles. FLEX RECOVERY TEST Follow this test protocol to determine your optimal recovery period for each major muscle group.

Use a weight with which you normally are able to achieve 10 reps with good form. On day one, when you perform seven sets of each exercise, rest three minutes between sets. During the entire testing phase, rest about 10 minutes between exercises. After day one, perform only one set of all the exercises daily (again using your 10RM weight) for up to five days.

• BODYPART : Chest | EXERCISE : Dumbbell Flyes

  DAY 1 SETS/WEIGHT : 7/10RM | DAY 2-5 SETS/WEIGHT : 1/10RM

• BODYPART : Shoulders | EXERCISE : Lateral Raises

  DAY 1 SETS/WEIGHT : 7/10RM | DAY 2-5 SETS/WEIGHT : 1/10RM

• BODYPART : Back | EXERCISE : Lat Pulldowns

  DAY 1 SETS/WEIGHT : 7/10RM | DAY 2-5 SETS/WEIGHT : 1/10RM

• BODYPART : Triceps | EXERCISE : Triceps Pushdowns

  DAY 1 SETS/WEIGHT : 7/10RM | DAY 2-5 SETS/WEIGHT : 1/10RM

• BODYPART : Biceps | EXERCISE : Biceps Curls

  DAY 1 SETS/WEIGHT : 7/10RM | DAY 2-5 SETS/WEIGHT : 1/10RM

• BODYPART : Quads | EXERCISE : Leg Extensions

  DAY 1 SETS/WEIGHT : 7/10RM | DAY 2-5 SETS/WEIGHT : 1/10RM

• BODYPART : Hamstrings | EXERCISE : Leg Curls

  DAY 1 SETS/WEIGHT : 7/10RM | DAY 2-5 SETS/WEIGHT : 1/10RM

On day one of the recovery test, perform seven sets of each exercise (in the order listed) to failure, using a weight with which you normally achieve 10 reps (your 10RM). The number of reps you perform for the first set of each exercise will be your baseline for recovery for that muscle group — if you perform just nine or as many as 11 reps, that’s the number to go by.

On days two, three, four and five, return to the gym and do only one set of each exercise with the your optimal recovery period for that muscle group. In other words, if you can perform 10 reps of dumbbell flyes on day one and you reach 10 again on day three, then you know that your chest has recovered.

Once you know your optimal recovery period for each muscle group, you can design your own training split to optimize muscle recovery and to maximize gains. Then, the rest is up to you. ON THE REBOUND This table depicts the number of reps the trained lifters were able to complete with their 10-rep-max weight on each testing day during the Western Kentucky University experiment.

• TEST DAY | Upper Body: 10 | Lower Body: 10
• REST DAY 1 | Upper Body: 9 | Lower Body: 8
• REST DAY 2 | Upper Body: 10* | Lower Body: 10*
• REST DAY 3 | Upper Body: 11 | Lower Body: 10
• REST DAY 4 | Upper Body: 11 | Lower Body: 11

1. *Several subjects were unable to complete 10 reps on this day.
2. FLEX
3. REFERENCES

K. Hakkinen, “Neuromuscular fatigue and recovery in male and female athletes during heavy resistance exercise,” International Journal of Sports Medicine, 14:53-59, 1993; J.R. McLester et al., “A series of studies — a practical protocol for testing muscular endurance recovery,” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 17(2):259-73, 2003 : Be Clock Wise – Muscle & Fitness

Why are my biceps still sore after 4 days?

Doms away! Is delayed onset muscle soreness inevitable after a workout? I f you have upped your training routine, returned to exercise after some time off or given a new activity a go, the chances are you have felt the characteristic ache of delayed onset muscle soreness (Doms).

Usually kicking in around 24 to 48 hours after exercise, muscles feel tender and sore as a result of microscopic damage to the muscle fibres, which occurs when you force your muscles to work harder than they are used to, or use muscle groups that you don’t often reach in your regular workout. It can leave you feeling achy and stiff, with a walk around the office taking on a John Wayne feel.

Any exercise to which you’re unaccustomed can result in a bout of Doms, says Dr Mark Wotherspoon, a consultant in sport, exercise and musculoskeletal medicine. Simply put, he says, it suggests you are “doing too much too soon”. “If you look under an electron microscope, you see that there’s a normal architecture and normal structure to the muscle fibre,” he says.

“When you look under the electron microscope with Doms, the whole architecture is disrupted. Essentially, it is true muscle damage, but it’s at the muscle fibre level as opposed to a muscle tear that you would get when you’re running and your hamstring goes.” Doms can last up to five days, with the effects usually worst on day two or three, then gradually improving without treatment.

It is a normal part of building muscle strength and stamina, but coach Nick Anderson warns that it could be telling you it’s time to review your workout. “A lot of people like because it means they’ve worked really hard and it’s a great feeling, but if it’s excessive and you’re getting it all the time then I would be questioning either your recovery strategies or your training plan.” Any changes should be gradual to allow muscles to adapt.

If you don’t get rid of that tightness and allow the muscle fibres to repair, you are more susceptible to injury for a period afterwards.” In the days following the onset of Doms, Anderson says, “don’t hammer the same muscle group again”. Instead, he suggests using other muscle groups for a few days at the gym or, if you’re a runner, simply lessening the intensity.

He also suggests incorporating a progressive warm-up, in which movements become gradually more intense, and not to skimp on the warm down. Good quality sleep also plays a factor, when it comes to recovery. Although you will want to go easy on tender muscles, Wotherspoon doesn’t recommend completely abandoning your fitness routine.

Instead, he advises incorporating light exercises. “If I ran on Monday and then on Tuesday was sore, I might go for a light bike ride or a little jog on Wednesday,” he says “So, exercising through it isn’t a bad thing, but exercising and ignoring it, and exercising hard, probably is not the best thing.” Do avoid any hard workouts and the temptation to “push through it” when muscles are vulnerable, he says.

“Your muscle capability is reduced, your muscle power is reduced and your muscles are tender.” While nutrition can’t prevent Doms as “a natural part of the training adaptation process”, it may help reduce the effects, says, “Most nutritional interventions to reduce Doms are closely related to inflammatory response and aiding the rebuilding of damaged muscles.” She recommends a portion of protein – the main nutrient needed for muscular repair – at each meal as well as snacks to support the recovery and muscle adaptation process.

Regular intake of carbohydrate is vital to replace muscle glycogen depleted during exercise. If you skimp on the carbohydrate, you run the risk of excessive protein (muscle) breakdown, which won’t contribute positively to the training process.” Ted Munson, a performance nutritionist at Science in Sport, agrees that carbohydrate intake is key, although the amount to consume “depends on what you’re doing.

If you’re undertaking high-intensity, prolonged-duration exercise like a half-marathon, you may need to consume 8-10g of carbs per kg of body mass per day. For shorter-duration, lower-intensity exercise, the demand may be reduced.” Both Munson and Cook agree that eating something as soon as you can post-exercise is beneficial, with muscles primed to take on nutrients within 30 minutes of finishing exercise.

Cook advises a simple carbohydrate and protein-based snack, while Munson suggests preparing a shake in advance; both recommend following this with a balanced meal within the next hour. Water is, as usual, key, says Cook. Because muscles are made up of a high percentage of water, “even mild dehydration can make your Doms worse”.

But although staying hydrated may reduce symptoms, it won’t speed up repair from muscle damage. Besides nutrition, elite athletes and novices alike swear by a number of recovery techniques, such as wearing compression clothing, using a foam roller and taking ice baths (who remembers the image of Andy Murray in an ice bath, clutching his Wimbledon trophy?) – but their effectiveness is debatable.

1. Anderson is a fan of compression clothing and massage, but advises caution when it comes to foam rollers, which he believes can be “massively overvalued by people,
2. It’s a very personal thing: some people get on with it very well, some people don’t, some people do too much of it and actually cause more bruising through the foam rolling than they would have caused through the exercise.” Wotherspoon – currently lead medical officer at Southampton FC, and a medical officer for the England cricket team for more than a decade – says that, while compression stockings, ice baths, light exercises and sports massage play a part in the recovery programmes of elite athletes, it may be all in the mind.

“There’s some evidence that it doesn’t matter which one of them you use, because the most effective recovery component is psychological,” he explains. “So, in other words, whatever makes you feel better, do. If you’re absolutely convinced that recovery stockings are the thing that helps you, crack on and use them; if you want to get in an ice bath, happy days.

Should I worry about bicep pain?

Sudden biceps pain may be caused by injury to the tendon, underlying bone, or a tear of muscle fibers. Sudden, sharp pain is abnormal while weightlifting and should be evaluated. People who tear their bicep tendon will also report hearing a popping sound. Unprovoked bicep pain is uncommon and can be caused by cramps.

How do I know if my bicep pain is serious?

What are the symptoms of a biceps tendon tear? – The most obvious symptom will be a sudden, severe pain in the upper part of your arm or at the elbow, depending on where the tendon is injured. You may hear or feel a “pop” when a tendon tears. Other signs that you may have torn a biceps tendon can include:

Sharp pain at the shoulder or elbow. A bruise that appears on the upper arm or forearm near the elbow. A feeling of weakness in the shoulder or elbow. Trouble rotating your arm from a “palm down” to a “palm up” position. A change in the contour of the front of your bicep in the upper arm (“Popeye muscle”).

While surgery may be needed to fix a torn tendon, in many cases people with a torn tendon can still function normally. Symptoms can be relieved using the same treatments that are used to treat tendonitis. Tears at the level of the elbow more often require operative repair.

Is my bicep sore or injured?

Bicep tear or strain treatment – In most cases, surgery is not needed to treat a bicep tear or strain. Nonsurgical treatments like rest, ice, and anti-inflammatory medications will relieve your symptoms. Other nonsurgical treatment options for a bicep tear or strain include:

Physical therapy and rehabilitation – Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) -Injecting platelets from your blood into the affected shoulder to speed up the recovery process.

If the tear is severe, surgical treatment may be needed. Candidates for surgery include:

People who have jobs where a full range of motion in the shoulder is required Anyone who needs to have a full range of motion. For example, a professional baseball player. Anyone who has debilitating chronic pain or cramping near the shoulder

Surgical treatment options include:

Bicep tenodesis: Screwing the ruptured end of the bicep tendon to the bone. Acromioplasty and direct tenodesis: During an acromioplasty, your doctor will remove a piece of the surface of the bone that is causing your pain. This procedure is typically performed on younger patients who have a history of shoulder injuries.

How long does it take for biceps to recover from workout?

Key Takeaways – 48-72 hours is the recommended time for muscle recovery. In order to speed muscle recovery, you can implement active rest after your workout session and have the right macronutrients in your diet. You can also try a hydromassage lounger,

How long does it take for biceps to recover from gym?

3.3. Your Recovering Ability – Training too little or too often will result in little bicep growth. This is because excessive training will not allow your arms to recover and rebuild. Therefore, you must give yourself enough time to recover in between your,