Muscle Injury & Healing Time

Muscles make movement within your body possible. Muscle injuries make movement painful or difficult. Depending on the demands you place on your muscles, the time it takes for them to heal from an injury can vary a great deal.

Types of Muscle

• There are three types of muscle in the body: skeletal, smooth and cardiac. Skeletal muscles control voluntary muscle movements like lifting your arm or bending your fingers. Smooth muscles and cardiac muscles handle involuntary movements like breathing. Injuries to skeletal muscles are most common.

Muscle Injuries

• Common muscle injuries include strains, cramps and repetitive stress injuries. A strain, or pulled muscle, happens when the muscle fibers are twisted or torn. A muscle cramp results in painful spasms. Repetitive stress injuries happen over time, usually due to small movements repeated over and over again.

Caring for Injuries

• Ice can reduce swelling in an injured muscle. Rest allows the muscles to recover and heal. Anti-inflammatory medication like aspirin or ibuprofen may also help the healing process for most muscle injuries. In the case of repetitive stress injuries, it's important to make adjustments to the movements triggering the injury.

Average Healing Time

• Complete recovery from most muscle injuries may take two to six weeks. The severity of the injury and the amount of rest you give the muscle affect recovery time. Repetitive stress injuries have a more varied healing time depending on the adjustments you make to the movements causing the injury.

Preventing Injuries

• You can help prevent strains and cramps by warming up before exercising. When you begin a new type of exercise or sport, build up to it gradually so that your muscles have time to learn the new demands they must meet. Prevent repetitive stress injuries by taking regular breaks from repetitive activities.