**1. Introduction**

Muscle regeneration represents an important homeostatic process of adult skeletal muscle, which retains, after development, the ability to regenerate in response to different injured stimuli, restoring damaged myofibers [1–3]. This property of the adult muscle tissue has drawn great scientific attention over time, since the impairment of skeletal muscle regenerative potential characterizes a suite of physiopathologic conditions severely affecting human health. A significant contribution to regenerative studies is derived from the development of experimental protocols to induce controlled muscle damage and from the validation of cellular, molecular, and histological analysis to reveal, monitor, and characterize each step of tissue repair. Several models of muscle injury have been developed in rodents; however, the complex dynamic of events following different types of muscle injury has still to be clarified. Confounding interpretations can derive from the indiscriminate use of experimental damaging techniques, since an increasing body of evidence suggests that skeletal muscle can differentially respond to injuries which affect, at various degree, the distinct cellular and structural components.

In this review, we integrated the principles of the physiologic muscle regeneration with a technical approach, reporting key experimental methods and markers employed to study cellular and molecular interactors dominating each stage of muscle healing.
