Less experienced lifters probably switch exercises too often, never getting the chance to truly progress on a lift after getting efficient on a movement. There's some claim strength gains the first 6 weeks have little relation to muscular gains, it's more neural. After that strength gains are more reflective of size increases. I recently took about 3 months completely off. When I now returned I did say 10 reps to failure with a certain load and the next workout I doubled the load and did 20 reps and this continued with lessened increases for a few workouts and then almost stalled, after which further increases are more rare. Now I did gain size quickly as well, like an inch on the arms after one workout but it's just old size coming back.
Louie Simmons of Westside barbell read old Russian training manuals and adapted some ideas into his own system. Switching exercises often. However now that geared lifting is out, from what I can see no one seems to train "conjugate." They seem to just mostly hammer the three competition lifts as a basis.
Dorian says he used the exact same workouts all through his career, almost no change at all, as he gained size, arguing, find the exercises that fit you and just keep doing them.
Some people claim they keep "gaining" most workouts even at 50+, after a lifetime of lifting, always putting a little more load on machines or increasing reps. Like I've seen Dante Doggcrapp and others say. But it's deceptive when switching exercises constantly. Say your lifetime best was 20 reps on squats with 3 plates, if you do 21 then yeah that's a real gain but that's not what happens. You progress on a machine for 3 workouts and then switch to another and do the same, but there's no real gain, the bottom line max strength doesn't increase.
In recent years when I've had health issues and have taken time off and returned several times, at certain returns I've had pretty limited DOMS and wondered if there's something to Basile's DOMS ideas, just couldn't get deeply sore and gains were unsatisfactory. Now this go around I'm currently very sore, and have gained well very quickly. However I was also very sick and it was like I had cancer and lost an alarming amount weight and muscle, then suddenly my symptoms improved and it was like I put on 20lbs of muscle overnight even before returning to the gym or changed my eating. So it's hard to say how the DOMS factors in. TBH over the years I have been confused over what exactly Basile has been saying or what the template should be.
