Concept Wednesday - Noob Gains

You can't "waste" noob gains. I'll explain why, but first let's look at what noob gains are.

What do people mean when they say "noob gains"?

Gains made at the beginning of a workout effort or program, whether that is strength gains, muscle gains, gains in a specific move, etc. It is a period marked by rapid improvement compared to gains made later in one's strength career.

You'll notice that you won't make the same strength gains as you did when you first started, and you won't put on muscle as fast as you once did.

What causes "noob gains"?

When you begin any strength training, a number of things occur in general:

Neurological:

• The ability to activate the prime movers of the action (the agonists) is going to increase. Untrained people are not able to activate most muscles to their full muscular potential voluntarily.
• Reduction in the co-activation of the antagonist of a movement. Reduced contraction of antagonists is of course going to increase how much force you output, but it will also cause less reciprocal inhibition to the agonist, allowing greater agonist activation.
• Firing frequency and synchronisation of nerve impulses to the muscle improves, increasing force output.

Basically noobs suck at activating their muscle to their fullest potential, and very quickly upon beginning training, this improves rapidly.

Morphological: This one is a little trickier as it can often take a couple of weeks for muscle changes to occur in the untrained, with neurological changes making up the bulk of strength increases to start with.

• Muscle growth. This one is pretty straight forward. When there is less muscle it grows faster, and as muscle size approaches the genetic limit for that muscle, muscle growth slows.
• Type 2 muscle fibre growth. Type 2 muscle fibres seem to respond to resistance training more readily than type 1, and thus experience a larger relative growth in the muscle. Type 2 muscle fibres are more pivotal in raising maximum tension, so a higher proportion of type 2 fibres is going to allow for a higher maximal strength. These facts combined cause noobs to experience a strength increase greater than their muscle growth might suggest.

Basically less muscle means more potential for growth which means faster growth.

Specific adaptations to specific moves also occur. Mainly the organisation of different muscle groups to contract in ways that cause the desired action in the most efficient way. Basically, your technique improves. The general improvements that take you from suck to sorta competent are going to have the biggest effect and take the least time. Technique improvements should continue through your training career, but most of those improvements take much longer time and yield much smaller gains.

So why can't I waste my noob gains?

Notice there's no time critical factors that affect noob gains. At no point does your body switch into noob gain mode and a timer start ticking. Noob gains are simply referring to how easy it is to move from a state of sucking or lacking to one of not really sucking that much any more.

Too often I see people ask about what if they're eating the wrong thing while in the noob period, are they wasting their noob gains by not bulking, etc. No bulking simply helps you take advantage of the ability to gain muscle quickly as someone with little muscle. If you don't bulk when you start, and don't put on a heap of muscle, it will still be easy to put on muscle when you don't have much, that will always remain true (hormonal changes aside).

People also ask about doing the wrong exercises, like doing isolation exercises only at first means you won't be able to make rapid gains in compound movements later, because you're no longer a noob. Again, noob gains just refer to your ability to improve on an action rapidly, because you suck at it. In fact, *being generally stronger will help you improve quicker than a total noob at a new move. For instance I had been strength training for a while before I ever did barbell lunges. When I was beginning at them I sucked, there was no way I could have done 100kg, but I started at 40kg and added 5kg a session 2-3 times a week. After about 6 weeks, I could reverse lunge 100kg for a few reps. Because I already had the muscular adaptations and general neurological adaptations, I just needed to learn and improve the technique to make the gains I did.

What you can waste.

You can however waste your prime time to gain muscle and strength. If you're going through puberty particularly in your late teens or early adulthood, and you aren't training, you're wasting a prime hormonal environment rich in testosterone that makes growing muscle much much easier. Don't be a fool, use your potential.