TL;DR: nothing to worry about, as a recreational lifter, there is no diminishing return for you.
If you have someone coaching you on proper techniques, and you're of average size, you should be squatting 300 and deadlifting 400 within about 6-12 months. Those are pretty easy to achieve. I've seen hundreds of newbies manage this at many lifting clubs, and it's not like our sport (powerlifting) attracts heaps of talented athletes (those go to real ones that pay money). Most are unco average joes who usually can't play any other sport well.
It's harder if you train at a typical commercial gym with no inspiration around and do a program generated from a spreadsheet or downloaded from the Internet, including the ever popular Slowing Strength and Weak Lifts.
As for diminishing returns, the question is: what do you train for?
If it is to get stronger, there is no diminishing return. You can never get strong enough! I train stupidly hard for every 5lb gain on my lifts. Don't worry, you won't get too strong accidentally.
If it is to help you with another sport, the diminishing return line is drawn where your strength training eats into the training time of your main sport, and/or develops side effects that make you less suitable for the main sport.
If it is to help you pick up chicks / for health / better quality of life etc., the line is drawn when you sink too much time into training that you lose valuable time elsewhere.
If you're strength training to pick up girls, it might help somewhat, but the line is quickly reached. In my lifting club, we have a joke about it. After a very hard session or set, we'd ask each other:
"Why do we do this shit to ourselves?"
"For fame, money and women!"
Nobody lifts super heavy all year round, least of all strength athletes. We all do periodisation (look it up) i.e we have various phases of training, not always super heavy, that's often reserved to competition blocks during the training cycle. The body is also amazingly adaptable, don't underestimate that.
Weightlifting is cool but it's a young athlete's game. It's an explosive sport, and you cannot do it slowly (thanks, gravity). Powerlifting can be done well into old age (have a 83 y.o man at our club, he's still very strong & fit, can pull about 450lb) because it's a slow sport. The two are like jumping vs running. You can't jump slowly, but you can run at whatever speed you want.
Strongman is also cool, but not accessible to most people, and only really appeals to huge dudes.
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I criticized powerlifters for being fat and justifying their lack of all-around fitness because they can squat a ton. Bite me. Jim Wendler, a former elite level powerlifter, has said exactly the same things.
This is only true for super heavyweights and there are precious few of them. Funnily enough they attract most of the attention because they move the biggest weights and look like freaks. Powerlifters in lower weight classes have to optimise their lean mass to fit in the weight class and usually are very lean and athletic.
As for lifting weights and joint health at older age, powerlifting and weightlifting have the lowest injury rate of any sport. If you play any sport, injuries are part & parcel, gotta accept some risk. The injuries in those sports are not that terrible though. I've had some injuries, but even in my injured state, I was fitter and stronger than most people.
If you want to avoid injury risks completely and be like most avg inactive people, those folks suffer from various hip, back, knee problems even before they reach old age. You're screwed there too.
It's a myth that lifting weights at old age causes problems. It's the opposite. At my club there's a retired couple in their mid-70s. They have zero of those problems, no osteoporosis either (their bone density is better than avg 30-sth males). My parents both lift (I coach them) and are in their 60s, they're often mistaken for 40-sth as they're very fit, in great shape and look young. They used to both suffer from back and knee pains, which are now long gone. When it's flex time at my dad's local gym and he takes his top off, most of the young blokes put theirs back on out of shame. Yet 10 years ago, he used to look like a typical fat weak 50-sth who might die soon from a heart attack and limp everywhere.
If you're a recreational lifter, I have an advice for you: never train to failure, train to success instead. You should leave every training session satisfied with your hard work while feeling like you're ready to conquer the world. And by that I mean you should have enough in the tank to go out, pick up a girl, bang her good, or do whatever you want to do for the rest of the night. Train hard but leave 1-2 reps/sets in the tank. You should be able to enjoy training for the rest of your life that way. Don't train to failure to the point you're crawling on the ground in a pool of sweat, barely able to breathe. That's not hardcore, that's dumb training, and you will not get better that way. People who do that will require lots of motivational videos, posters, pre-workouts etc. before they hit the gym every time, and that's not sustainable, they will burn out soon enough. Before you ask, pro bodybuilders who train to failures always maintain their form and have done so for decades, and are on a full warehouse of best drugs money can buy. Amateur lifters should not imitate the training of elites.