~160lb, 30yo. I know it's nothing special on the world stage but it's irrelevant because everyone is on gear these days and I've never even taken creatine (got scared about hair loss, lol). I also used to rep out both dips and chinups with 60kg of weight attached which tended to attract attention. But no matter what I did I never felt like I needed to take days off. I remember the DOMS in the very early days of the gym, but that just stopped happening and never came back.
Maybe I wasn't pushing myself hard enough, but I also never got injured. How much more could I have realistically achieved by pushing harder? I don't think much. I got really put off trying so hard when I realised how many people were on gear.
DOMS goes away by training again, then comes back. Sounds a lot like overtraining. Always a little fatigued. Enough where you are not able to do a PR, but not enough where you still can't go relatively hard. The body gets used to the moderately hard workouts and can plateau easily.
I think you just plateaued which is normal for everyone and just ended up staying there. Most likely a combination of not eating enough and not really pushing to failure to get past it.
If you're repping things with no problem, you're at the your current "optimal" level so yeah, you won't feel like you need to recover.
Like in cardio, I could rip out a half-marathon at a 8:00m pace and feel fine the next day, but try and reach 7:30 and I would be shattered.
At 30, probably better not to try and go too ham, but you have plenty of room to get much stronger. I don't know why other people using gear influenced you. Get fit for yourself, fuck the others.
I did get fit and remain so. But I realised chasing higher numbers wasn't for me. I find the refusal to accept the natty limit in lifting weird. I'm stronger than almost everyone and I've proved this with real life useful work like moving house all by myself. Eventually you realise the lifting is just a sport and I don't like sports.
I find the whole thing super fake now. People eating 5 chickens a week that were slaughtered for them in horrible conditions. Burning fossil fuels to move their obese body to the gym every day to go do pretend work in air conditioned boxes. Tell themselves BMI is bullshit and doesn't work for extremely muscular outliers like them and they're just "bulking" and that somehow eating 3000+ calories a day is good for them. Oh and I guess tell themselves that not being able to walk after a workout is somehow good for them.
Nowadays I walk, run and cycle outside, do calisthenics at home, do intermittent fasting every single day, eat delicious food, remain shredded, take no supplements and still have my hair.
Gyms are good for adults to train from the general blob like form we all seem to regress to after childhood into the form they always should have been. I think the ideal would be just maintaining childhood strength all the way into adulthood, so just doing exercise basically. Gyms are only necessary because there are adults with so little functional strength that they'd injure themselves if they tried to do a single dip or lift a box.
Standard strength goals should be being able to walk 30km, 1000m ascent with a 10kg pack. Being able to cycle 100 miles. Being able to lift your own bodyweight from a dead hang. Being able to lift a 100kg box shaped load etc. Real strength.
I'm not saying nobody should do it for a sport, though. I love strongman (specifically World's Strongest Man). But you have to realise to compete there you need to be on copious amounts of gear, just like any other sport. You just have to be real with yourself about what your goals are.
Maybe I wasn't pushing myself hard enough, but I also never got injured. How much more could I have realistically achieved by pushing harder? I don't think much. I got really put off trying so hard when I realised how many people were on gear.