Illustration of a skinny person building muscle and bulking up.

Build Muscle. Gain Strength. Outlift Yourself.

We're Shane and Marco, known for founding Bony to Beastly and Bony to Bombshell, two of the most popular muscle-building sites for naturally thin people, each with tens of millions of readers.

We have fifteen years of experience coaching clients ranging from everyday people all the way up to college, professional, and Olympic athletes.

We consider lifting research, and we take it seriously, but we also delve into the darkest corners of lifting lore. There's wisdom in bodybuilding traditions, powerlifting programs, and callisthenics routines.

If you want us to walk you through the process of building muscle, start to finish, with personal feedback along the way, check out our programsYour results are fully guaranteed. We have an unconditional refund policy on everything we sell.

If you want to peruse the blog, here are the best articles to start with:

Hypertrophy Training

If you're interested in building muscle, we've written about almost every aspect of hypertrophy training. I recommend starting with our big hypertrophy training guide.

Here are some of our more in-depth articles about hypertrophy training principles:

How to Lift Weights

If you want to learn how to lift weights, build muscle, and get stronger, I recommend starting with our article about how to get stronger at the 5 big compound exercises.

You can read about the nuances of each lift here:

Hypertrophy Workout Routines

We've got a bunch of free workout routines you can look through. The articles will teach you how to follow these routines or build your own from scratch.

Healthy Lifestyle

We've also got some articles about how to live a healthy lifestyle, eat a good diet, maintain good body composition, and combine weight training with cardio:

If you have any questions about anything, drop a comment in the most relevant article. I answer every comment.

Before and after photo of an intermediate lifter bulking
Before and after photo of a skinny guy becoming muscular
Skinny-Fat to Muscular Transformation
Before and after photo of a skinny-fat guy becoming lean and muscular
Women's weight gain transformation
Before and after photo of an intermediate lifter building muscle

Recent Articles

Illustration of a man doing a conventional barbell deadlift, one of the best exercises for building muscle.

The Best Barbell Exercises for Building Muscle

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | December 26, 2020

The best barbell exercises, without a doubt, are the 5 big compound lifts: the squat, bench press, deadlift, overhead press, and chin-up. These exercises will give you around 2/3rds of…

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Illustration of a sweating man with flaming shoulders doing the overhead press.

How Long Should You Rest Between Sets to Build Muscle?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | March 7, 2020

Recently, research has been coming out showing that long rest periods between sets are best for building muscle. When you rest for longer, your muscles recover more of their strength,…

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Illustration of a man flexing burning muscles.

How Many Calories Does a Pound of Muscle Burn?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | May 16, 2023

A pound of muscle burns around 6 calories per day at rest (study, study, study, study). However, it also takes energy to carry around and use those muscles. Your heftier leg muscles…

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Diagram showing the various back muscles.

What Muscles Do Pull-Ups Work?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | May 22, 2023

Pull-ups, often conflated with chin-ups, are a compound upper-back exercise. They’ll give you a wide back and thick arms—and we’ll talk about which back muscles they’re best for—but what makes…

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Illustration of a bodybuilder doing chin-ups instead of pull-ups.

The Best Pull-Up Alternatives (for Building Muscle)

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | May 19, 2023

Pull-ups are one of the very best back exercises, rivalled only by chin-ups and deadlifts. The problem is not everyone can do them. Some people aren’t strong enough. Others don’t…

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Illustration showing the difference between chin-ups and pull-ups.

What’s The Difference Between Chin-Ups & Pull-Ups? Which is Better?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | December 19, 2020

Chin-ups are done by hanging from a bar with an underhand grip and pulling yourself up. Pull-ups are quite similar. You hang from a bar with an overhand grip and…

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Illustration showing a man doing a lat pulldown.

Lat Pulldown Alternatives: How to Train Your Lats With Free Weights

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | November 10, 2020

One of the most common questions we get is how to do lat pulldowns without a lat pulldown machine. People are training at home with either a barbell or dumbbells,…

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Reverse Pyramid Training Workout Routine for Muscle Hypertrophy

Reverse Pyramid Training Guide

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | June 28, 2020

Reverse Pyramid Training is a popular way for intermediates to break through muscle and strength plateaus. It’s also quite efficient, typically involving three full-body workouts per week, each lasting less…

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Illustration showing a man doing a barbell deadlift.

How Much Can the Average Man Lift?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | September 26, 2020

How much can the average man lift? How much can they squat, bench press, deadlift, overhead press, and barbell curl? How does the strength of the average untrained man compare…

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