Over Training Question

[Complete Muscle]

I've heard that certain muscle groups recover faster than others. For instance that biceps and abs take the least time to recover at approx 48 hours, most other muscle groups take 72 hours, and lower back muscles take the longest to fully recover 96 hours. Any truth to these claims? Anecdotal and/or scientific replies welcomed!!!

[AJ7982]

From my experience....you are right, biceps recover pretty damn quick (well at least they stop hurting pretty quick) If I have a really good leg workout, they'll hurt pretty much 5 days almost until my next workout. My chest seems to recover pretty quick, triceps usually hurt for a couple days. When I hit my shoulders really hard, they hurt almost as long as my legs.

[musmar]

It also depends on how much you eat, what supplements you take and how hard you hit a muscle. If you eat 1000 calories a day, you will probably recover much slower than when you eat 2500. Also, L-glutamine helps with recovery a lot! Chest usually hurts for 4-5 days, legs for 3-4, biceps for about 2....tris the same, back about 2-3 days. It depends from person to person. The rule is not to train a bodypart if its still sore from the previous workout.

[Timbo]

Many factors affect recovery, we all know this: nutritional status, volume, indivdual differences, etc. but also muscle size and muscle fiber make-up are two important characteristics. It is true that smaller muscle groups will recovery faster than larger muscle groups. Smaller muscle groups would be biceps, triceps, calves, forearms, etc, while larger muscle groups would be chest, delts, back, quads, hamms, etc. Of course, biceps and triceps are synergists when training pulling and pushing muscle groups, so they get a lot of indirect and direct work. As far as fiber make-up, slow-twitch groups recover much quicker than fast-twitch groups. Good question, Complete. I'm not sure about the lower back muscles, though.