Strength coach Wayne Gold is 55 and has been training for 28 years. In that time, he estimates he's completed more than 3,500 workouts – and, by his own admission, made 'every mistake in the book' along the way.
Now, with almost three decades of experience behind him, Gold has shared the three training principles he believes matter most for continuing to build strength and muscle.
'This isn't theory – this is what works,' Gold says. 'If you do these three things, you'll add strength and muscle.'
3 Rules for Building Strength and Muscle
1. Build Around Compound Movements and Progressive Overload
Gold's first rule is to make compound movements the foundation of your training.
Rather than filling your programme with isolation exercises, prioritise big movements that train multiple muscle groups simultaneously, then gradually increase the weight, reps or difficulty over time.
'Train using basic compound exercises: deadlifts, squats, rows and presses. Skip the isolation work. They’re not the programme – they’re the dessert. Build the foundation first,' Gold says.
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That doesn't mean isolation exercises have no value, particularly if building muscle is your goal. Gold's point is about priorities: get progressively stronger at the basics first, then add smaller movements where they're useful.
2. Train Close to Failure
Gold trains hard, but generally stops just short of failure.
His reasoning is that pushing every set to its absolute limit can generate additional fatigue and increase recovery demands without necessarily providing enough extra benefit to justify doing it all the time.
'You have to train hard, but leave one to two reps in the tank every set. No drop sets. No rest-pause sets. No intensifiers. I did all of that in my thirties – it beat me up, it slowed my recovery, and it didn’t build anything extra,' he explains.
'Your job is to stimulate the muscle, not destroy it.'
Leaving one or two good reps in reserve still means working hard. The difference is that you're ending the set before your form deteriorates or every rep becomes a grind – potentially making it easier to recover and come back ready for your next session.
3. Track Every Lift
Tracking your training isn't exactly revolutionary. But Gold takes it further than simply recording sets, reps and weights.
He recommends keeping the conditions of each exercise as consistent as possible. That could mean noting the angle of your incline bench press, your grip width on a bent-over row or your foot position on the leg press.
After all, adding 10kg to an exercise doesn't tell you much about your progress if you've simultaneously changed how you're performing it.
'If the conditions change, the comparison is worthless,' he argues. 'Same exercise. Same angle. Same set up. Every time. That’s how you actually measure progress.'
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