Post-Workout Muscle Recovery: How to Let Your Muscles Heal and Why

To become stronger, faster, and fitter, you have to push your body harder. But then you have to rest, too.

All workouts, especially tough ones, stress the body. You’re fatiguing, or tiring out, various muscles when you work out, which means you’re causing microscopic damage to muscle cells. Hormone and enzyme levels fluctuate, and inflammation actually increases, explains Chris Kolba, PhD, a physical therapist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus.

The changes you’re causing can do your body a lot of good. They lead to muscle growth, fat loss, improved insulin sensitivity, reduced inflammation, better cardiovascular health, and an overall healthier body. But you need to give your body time for those good changes to happen before you start stressing it out again.

“This rest, called exercise recovery, is what allows people to [benefit] from their workouts,” Dr. Kolba says, allowing you to get the maximum benefit from every exercise session.

The damage that exercise causes triggers your body’s immune system to repair that damage, explains Adam Rivadeneyra, MD, a sports medicine physician with the Hoag Orthopedic Institute and the Orthopaedic Specialty Institute in Orange, California. And when your body’s tissues — from your muscles and bones to heart and lungs — recover, they become slightly fitter than they were before. That way, the next time you perform the same workout, you won’t suffer as much damage.

“But you have to cause some damage to your body for it to adapt,” Dr. Rivadeneyra says.

Repeated again and again, this process of stress and recovery is what results in improved health and fitness.

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^{Rest and recovery are important parts of every workout plan. Kelsey Wells, a trainer with the workout app Sweat and creator of the PWR weight-training programs, shares her favorite tips for letting your muscles recoup.}