I understand what you're saying... You're talking about total gains over a long period of time like a 10 year sedentary steroid use versus a 10 year natural lifter doing lots of the right things... I'm not sure if there's any data on the subject besides anecdotes.
Do you have a longitudinal study source?
> "Untrained males without prior AAS use gained more muscle over a 10 week non-exercise period than similar males who performed exercise."
There's lots of studies that show steroid users accumulate about 2x as much muscle as non steroid users, but those are both in trained groups. Unclear about what happens if someone takes steroids across 10 years, and how much total muscle they accumulate relative to a natural over the same time period.
This doesn’t need to be longitudinal — the parent’s point seems to be much simpler: people who don’t work out will have quicker initial muscle gains upon starting than those who already regularly work out. This could be measured over a period of weeks but I wonder if it has been studied because it is so obviously true.
Do you have a longitudinal study source?
> "Untrained males without prior AAS use gained more muscle over a 10 week non-exercise period than similar males who performed exercise."
There's lots of studies that show steroid users accumulate about 2x as much muscle as non steroid users, but those are both in trained groups. Unclear about what happens if someone takes steroids across 10 years, and how much total muscle they accumulate relative to a natural over the same time period.