When you first start lifting weights you are faced with two opposing scenarios. The first is that you are highly motivated to work out as often as possible, the second however is that you will end up being too sore to train as frequently as you want.
This is only really true in absolute beginners, the stimulation from weight training and muscle damage caused is a new stress for your body to deal with.
The human body is amazing in its adaptive capabilities however this is not a short term process and optimally recovering from your workouts is something that takes time to adjust to both from a muscular and a hormonal/nervous system viewpoint.
In general, a muscle group can take anywhere from 24-72 hours to recover from a workout however this depends on a whole range of factors that make it almost impossible to summarise in the space of an article!
How long does it take arms to recover? While it can take 24 hours for your arms to recover from a workout you should generally allow 48-72 hours for full recovery. This is mainly because protein synthesis is still active during this timeframe so you are still in an optimal muscle building state.
What I will be doing however, is giving you the necessary information for how long it takes your biceps and triceps to recover in between workouts and it will be laid out in a format that you can apply and test for yourself.
The truth is everyone is different and if you’ve seen that it takes ‘x’ amount of time for a muscle to recover then you are going to be blindly following information that might not be relevant to you.
The above might seem slightly confusing, how can I say it takes 24 hours to recover and yet recommend allowing 48-72 hours recovery time in between training arms? There are actually a few reasons for this and I’ll cover them now.
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How Long Does It Take Arms to Recover
When looking at a muscle groups recovery rate, a number of factors will come into play which I’ll cover shortly but it’s important to note that recovery is not a universal term. This means that one person saying their muscle is recovered will be different from another.
What I mean by this is that recovery does not only mean the length of time that it takes to repair muscle tissue (this is what can take 24 hours for a smaller muscle group like the biceps and triceps) but also the time it takes to recover from a strength perspective.
When referred to strength what this means is our ability to apply to an external object. This means our ability to activate our motor units optimally and recruit the required number of muscle fibres. It’s this aspect that takes longer than 24 hours and is why I’d never recommend training the same muscle group any sooner than 48 hours after your last workout targeting that muscle group.
Our ability to produce force is the difference between bench pressing 225lbs for 3 sets of 8 reps one workout and then struggling to bench press 180lbs for 3 sets of 8 reps the following workout.
While it’s not always the case that you need to lift heavier it’s clear from this example this pressing 225lbs will do more for strength and muscle growth than pressing 180lbs will.
It’s been shown in this study (source) that 48 hours is the time required for your strength performance to recover from workout to workout so I’d use this as a minimum when training biceps and triceps.
Is 24 Hours Enough Time for Your Muscles to Recover
In the simplest scenario 24 hours is enough time for your muscle to recover, particularly for a smaller muscle group however it needs to be made clear that it is not necessarily the optimal recovery time.
You might have either experienced this yourself or seen programs or athletes/bodybuilders that will train abs every day and this is a viable approach for a number of reasons.
The abs are made up of a higher percentage of slow twitch muscle fibres meaning they are more suited for endurance based training and as a result take longer to fatigue and can recover quicker.
The force output required is also minimal, a body weight leg raise requires a lot less force than what is needed for a 400lb squat by the leg muscles.
Finally, whilst the abs act as a stabilizing muscle group for a lot of exercises, they rarely ever act as an actual secondary muscle group which is arguably the most important factor here.
If you have dedicated arm day on Monday and then train your chest on Tuesday your triceps will then be acting as a secondary muscle for a lot of your chest movements like bench press and dips.
Therefore not only will your triceps have not had enough time to fully recover but they will then be active again lessening your performance and future recovery capabilities.
Whilst 24 hours can be enough time for your muscles to recover in theory you should not be following this guideline for biceps and triceps if you want optimal strength of muscle growth potential.
Factors That Influence Bicep and Tricep Recovery
With a general guideline of 48-72 hours rest for biceps and triceps it’s important to know what factors actually contribute to full muscle recovery so that you can make personal decisions based on your own training routine and lifestyle.
This is a crucial point to keep in mind, someone that trains purely with strength in mind will have different recovery requirements from the person that trains for maximal muscle hypertrophy so keep that in mind when considering your bicep and tricep recovery.
Muscle Fibre Makeup
Each muscle has a unique muscle fibre makeup and each individual will have a different muscle fibre makeup for each muscle group. In its simplest form, our muscles are made up of a percentage of fast twitch muscle fibres and slow twitch muscle fibres.
Fast twitch muscle fibres are geared towards explosive strength based movements and slow twitch fibres are endurance based for. We all have a combination of each but the higher percentage of one fibre type the more you will excel in a certain endeavor.
The obvious example being 100m sprinters and long distance marathon runners. The sprinters will have a much higher proportion of fast twitch muscle fibres whilst distance runners will have a higher proportion of the slow twitch fibres.
In most people you will only have a slight difference in muscle fibre type which could be a 55%/45% and it will also vary between muscle groups. Hamstrings for example will have a higher proportion of fast twitch muscle fibres whereas your quads have a higher proportion of slow twitch (again this can vary from person to person).
The reason this is so crucial to know is because fast twitch muscle fibres fatigue much quicker than the slow twitch fibres and also take longer to recover. If you are training arms with heavy sets with a rep range of 8-12 then you will be predominantly targeting your fast twitch muscle fibres.
These are crucial for muscle growth so tying in from an earlier point I’d still stick with a minimum of 48 hours for recovery.
Note – if you are interested in training arms with a higher frequency then I’ve got an article that looks into whether or not you can train arms everyday here.
Intensity of Your Arm Workout
This is another important factor to keep in mind and that is the intensity of your arm workouts. Training volume and frequency will all play a role here but the most important thing to keep in mind is that you can’t base your level of intensity on opinion only.
A beginner might percieve their workouts to be an intense level but similarly a heavily obese individual might consider a 5 minute jog to be intense!
Trying to base your level of intensity on opinion is not a logical step to take when factoring in recovery from a workout. An advanced level lifter testing their 1 rep max on a specific workout will of course require a higher training intensity than an individual doing 20 sets for a muscle group at the 8 rep range.
This is because not only do you need to recover from a muscle damage viewpoint but also from a nervous system viewpoint and this will take longer the higher the intensity of your workout is.
Arms are a small muscle group and therefore it’s difficult to train them with the same intensity as what you would with a deadlift or squat for back and legs respectively.
What you need to consider instead is training volume. A few sets is enough to stimulate muscle protein synthesis which is the muscle building process and therefore if this is all you do then you are still primed for muscle growth whilst also speeding up your recovery process.
If however you are doing in excess of 20+ sets for biceps and triceps then this will cause significantly more muscle damage and will as a result take longer to recover from, especially if you are training your upper body in the immediate days afterwards when your arms are required to act as a secondary muscle group.
Neither approach is better so don’t assume that I’m saying fewer sets are better for muscle growth, it’s just something that you need to be aware of. Training biceps for fewer sets on a pull day will still yield results so don’t assume that more is better when it comes to arm training.
Muscle Recovery Diet
People say that a physique is made in the kitchen and not the gym and that is true to an extent, if not slightly over exaggerated.
What is true however is that you do need to not only eat to grow but eat to recover. When it comes to muscle recovery the most important thing to keep in mind is that you need to hit your daily protein requirements.
This is not as regimented as needed to eat every few hours but at an absolute minimum you need to hit an average protein intake to support your goals. This is because missing your protein requirements for one day will not destroy your progress but a repeated failure to do so will definitely hinder your recovery.
To keep it simple you simply need to consume at a minimum of 1g of protein per 1lb body weight. This is because protein is basically the building block of your muscles and resistance training increases the body’s requirements for protein.
If you don’t have enough protein readily available for the process of muscle protein synthesis (muscle growth) then it will take you longer to recover from a workout.
This isn’t too much of a technical or thought provoking principle, just make sure to hit your protein requirements daily and you’ll tick a box needed for growth.
Rest
Finally, the most boring but most important aspect when it comes to muscle recovery is rest. You can’t recover if you don’t give your muscles the time to actually do this.
It sounds so obvious but this is the issue that usually arises when you want to train any muscle group as often as possible, not just the biceps and triceps.
Training too frequently won’t likely lead to overtraining for an individual like many think, again you need to be at an advanced lifting level to really train with the intensity that will lead to overtraining overtime. What is actually the issue is under recovery.
Rest days are absolutely crucial for physique development and recovery and I’d recommend anywhere from 2-4 days rest per week. Weight training is only the process of stimulating muscle growth but it’s just rest that you actually build muscle.
Therefore even if you could train everyday without feeling negative effects this doesn’t mean that you are training optimally. Prioritize your rest days if you really want to recover from workout to workout.
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