Well to start and the number one is if you can limit root space that ultimately dictates plant size, also if the plant has enough lateral space to grow unimpeded usually then you don’t have to touch the plant, but getting that right takes some trial and error.
But basic things i do to either free up space or keep plants in check are, super cropping if they start to get too tall, which is simply just crushing the stems inner herd and flopping over a top, that typically causes the other buds to catch up and in a couple days things are usually more even and the top you flopped over is reaching for the sky again which usually needs to be bent over again, or tied down, i use elastic bands in my own just looping back on themselves and then ties to a hook or something as this still allows the plant to grow relatively unimpeded vs the use of string.
If plants are crowding each other out and or buds are getting covered in higher foliage then i typically defoliate most of the bigger fan leaves that are causing issue, it can be done drastically leaving sticks but its better to leave as much as you can behind. This also helps with airing out your spaces as sometimes the canopy gets way too dense and you can run into rot issue if things are to humid or dense.
I also lollipop pretty regularly to a certain extent by removing the bottom couple nodes of flowering sites and they just become a fluffy mess which doesn’t really increase yield and are a hassle to trim, so i opt instead for the plant to focus its energy on the buds that get more light and to air out the under canopy a bit.
If things really don’t behave then the tops get chopped, which with photo periods you can tell or know by about week 2-3 of flower and its early enough that they can recover.
But if i don’t want to chop then i do something i call “Z” ing, which is just a more extreme form of some supercropping/high stress training, but honestly the plants dont even slow down if they are healthy.
I’ll include an old picture of that just to show you what can be done, and that are plants are a lot more resilient than most think or know.
