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How long does a pulled muscle take to heal?

How long a pulled muscle takes to heal depends on the severity and what tissue is injured.
Maryke Louw
Maryke Louw
Dec 13, 2023
Medically reviewed by
Sabrina Burkart
Wondering how long your pulled muscle will take to heal? In this article, I explain how the healing process works and how you can use this to estimate your healing time.

Typical recovery times for muscle strains

On average, the following recovery times apply:

  • Minor strains that affect only a small portion of the muscle tissue can recover in 4 to 6 weeks
  • More severe strains that affect a large part of the muscle take 8 to 12 weeks
  • If you've also injured a tendon, your muscle strain may take more than 4 months to heal fully

We've previously discussed the treatment of hamstring strains and calf strains in detail.

Struggling with a stubborn muscle strain? The Exakt Health app is a trusted, easy-to-follow rehab tool designed to get athletes and active people back on track after injury. Get the expert support you need now and get back to what you love sooner.

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Evidence-based rehab plans for muscle strains
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Woman using the rehab plan in the Exakt Health app to treat her muscle strain.

To understand why muscle strain healing times vary so much, it's helpful to look at what muscles are made of and how this affects the healing process.

How the different parts of a muscle affect healing

Muscles are made up of lots of muscle cells grouped together in bundles. Layers of fascia (that white, sinewy stuff in meat) hold these bundles together, and a thick fascia layer also surrounds the muscle itself.

The structure of skeletal muscles.

The muscle cells receive a good blood and nerve supply via several arteries, veins, and nerves that thread through the muscle. The rich blood supply brings oxygen and nutrients to the injured area and helps muscles to heal more quickly.

Muscles attach to the bones via tendons. The main building block of tendons is collagen. Collagen takes much longer to produce and strengthen than muscle cells. Tendons also have a poorer blood supply than muscle cells. These factors mean that muscle strains that include tendon injuries heal more slowly.

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How does the body heal a muscle strain?

The body follows a 3 stage process when it repairs a torn muscle or tendon.
1
Inflammatory stage
Before the body can start producing new cells, it must first get rid of the damaged ones. It does this through an inflammatory process where the inflammatory cells absorb and remove the damaged cells. It usually takes about 3 to 5 days to complete this process.
2
Proliferation stage
Then, the body starts producing new cells to replace the damaged ones. The new cells are still weak and disorganized. It is essential to start gentle movement and strength training to help align and strengthen them. Injuries involving muscle and fascia cells take between 7 and 21 days to complete this stage. Tendons take much longer.
3
Remodeling stage
For the injured muscle and tendon to fully recover, the new cells must grow strong and realign with the rest of the tissue. You can only do this by following a progressive strength training plan, hence why rehab exercises are so important. The remodeling stage starts shortly after the first new cells have formed, and for minor strains, it can finish within 4 weeks. More severe strains involving the tendon can take many months to complete this process.

Your rehab exercises must match the current stage of healing, strength, and endurance of your injured muscle. If the exercises are too intense, they will worsen your injury.

Because inflammation plays a key role in healing, it's best to avoid taking anti-inflammatory medication when recovering from a pulled muscle.

How do you know which stage of healing your injury is in?

To err on the side of caution, assume that the inflammatory phase always lasts 5 days. After that, you don't really need to know the exact stage of healing to choose the proper treatment.

The important thing is to understand that during the early stages of recovery, your treatment should focus on protecting the area and not doing exercises and movements that are too forceful. Using pain as a guide can be very useful to get this right.

Your rehab exercises must start at an easy level and slowly increase in intensity as your muscle strain heals.
Your rehab exercises must start at an easy level and slowly increase in intensity as your muscle strain heals.

As your muscle strain recovers, you must move to more challenging exercises and increase their complexity to properly prepare the muscle for the work it will do when you play your sport.

One of the features of our Exakt Health App is that it guides you through this process. It uses the same functional tests that a physiotherapist uses to decide when your muscle is ready to progress to the next level of strength training or restart your sport.

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Evidence-based rehab plans for muscle strains
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Man using the rehab plan in the Exakt Health app to treat his muscle strain.
More about muscle strains
Maryke Louw
Maryke Louw
Maryke Louw is the Medical Lead at Exakt Health and a chartered physiotherapist. She has a BSc in Physiotherapy and an MSc in Sports Injury Management and has been working with athletes of all abilities and ages for more than 20 years. Maryke combines her extensive knowledge of sports injury treatment with the latest research to provide effective injury treatment and prevention advice.
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