# Which human muscles heal fastest and slowest?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-human-muscles-heal-fastest-and-slowest/340115>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 15, 2006, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-human-muscles-heal-fastest-and-slowest/340115 "2006-01-15T19:30:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![StewieGriffin420](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@StewieGriffin420](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StewieGriffin420)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-human-muscles-heal-fastest-and-slowest/340115/1 "2006-01-15T19:30:18Z")

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I had heard that biceps are fastest, lower back recovers the slowest, what is the sd?

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**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-human-muscles-heal-fastest-and-slowest/340115/2 "2006-01-15T19:34:13Z")

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Well, the lower back might be regarded as the slowest, but is that more because that it _is_ the slowest, or because it’s harder to work it out and make stronger (a muscle getting stronger is just it repairing itself to a slightly better state after getting damaged from working out.)

And what about the smooth muscle lining the intestines? Seeing as it doesn’t really ever get worked out beyond normal digestion, I would think it’s not used to repairing itself as much as skeletal muscle.

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**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2006, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-human-muscles-heal-fastest-and-slowest/340115/3 "2006-01-15T21:28:44Z")

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The rate of healing should be about the same in all muscles. Large muscles heal more slowly because of the amount of tissue that needs to be repaired, and the lower back is one of the largest muscle groups in the human body.

The notion that biceps heal the most quickly is probably just a myth perpretated by people who want to believe that it’s OK to do biceps curls every day.