Assessed by what means? I've never seen such low voluntary activation measures in participants or reported accurately in the literature

Well, the effectiveness of "beginner gains" will be largely dependent on the extent of time spent not training.
The other factor to consider, of less importance is previous training history.

very interesting thread. subbed

I think that having a sufficient diet would allow gains, optimally. building routines around a diet is the way to go from my experience. I originally thought of this as a scrawn trying to bulk with lack of calories, to which I would have to disagree. but, losing weight, this seems possible.

I think the greatest part of this discussion is defining what classifies beginner gains, as previously mentioned. at what point are beginner gains compromised due to previous experience or exposure to physical activity or diet habits? good stuff

Good question. Does someone who played sports their entire life and lifted through highschool but hasn't seriously in a few years get the same "noob gains" that someone who has literally no experience with sports/lifting?

In my opinion those who have trained sports their entire life will get gains but not compared to an totally new beginner, this is because people who have played sports their entire life are accustomed with "stressing" their neuromuscular system and their muscles also. Thats why the gains the "newbs" get are larger compared to a fellow who has done sports already. It might be tho that in the long run the fellows who are accustomed with sports/lifting will advance/develop their physique faster (because of being accustomed with lifting/etc so their body can adapt faster and learn faster compared to a new starter)

The beginners gains or "newb" gains can be explained due to their neuromuscular system adapting to the stress they put their body into, also the forms of lifts get better and better each time lifting (until to a certain point)

But this is just my opinion and my experience with these, in about 2 months i can say from the perspective of a lifter who has been lifting for a quite some time but just in the past 6 months have started to look the programs/lift techniques in a way they should be viewed (linear progression, quality forms, leaving the ego outside the gym and so on)

Basically, if you are untrained for 6-12 months, you then go back to, for lack of a better term, beginner/novice status. Regardless of how long you trained for prior.

This post was edited by uGhost on Apr 18 2016 01:47am