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 bodybuilder training with the X3 Bar by Dr John Jaquish to build muscle mass.

Review of the X3 Bar by Dr John Jaquish: Is It Good for Building Muscle?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | December 9, 2020

Dr John Jaquish is quickly becoming known for making extravagant claims about the benefits of training with his resistance band system, the X3 Bar. According to him, the product that…

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Illustration of a lever weightlifting belt.

Are Weight Lifting Belts Good for Building Muscle?

By Shane Duquette | March 9, 2020

Some argue weight lifting belts help us build muscle because they allow us to lift more weight while protecting our lower backs, and there’s some truth to that. If we…

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Illustration of a muscular bodybuilder flexing his biceps.

Review of the Max Size Workout Program by Athlean-X

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | June 13, 2020

Our specialty is hypertrophy training. More specifically, we help naturally skinny “hardgainers” bulk up. But before that, Marco worked as the strength coach for several college, professional, and Olympic athletes.…

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Illustration of a man failing while doing a squat.

When Should You Lift to Failure?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | September 16, 2020

Should we lift to failure when trying to gain muscle size? That’s a tricky question, and the answer depends on the situation. For example, experienced lifters are able to lift…

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Diagram showing how our muscle insertions affect our strength.

Muscle Size vs Strength: Is Gaining Muscle Mass Good for Gaining Strength?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | July 20, 2021

Many people start weight training because they want to improve their appearance. They focus on building bigger muscles. Hypertrophy training. Bodybuilding. And that’s great. Building bigger muscles can make us…

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Illustration of a man doing the barbell row.

The Bent-Over Barbell Row Hypertrophy Guide

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | September 27, 2020

The barbell row, also known as the bent-over row, is one of the more popular compound lifts, and it’s commonly used in both strength training and bodybuilding programs. But most…

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Illustration showing Starting Strength facing off versus Stronglifts 5x5

Starting Strength vs StrongLifts 5×5: What’s the Difference?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | October 5, 2020

What’s the difference between Starting Strength and StrongLifts 5×5? Which workout program is better for beginners, which is better for building muscle, and which is better overall? There are a…

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Illustration of a man doing the GreySkull LP program for mass gain.

GreySkull LP: Is It Good for Gaining Muscle Mass?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | October 14, 2020

GreySkull LP (GSLP) is a powerbuilding program designed to help beginners get bigger and stronger. It’s one of the more popular programs in the strength training community, and it’s often…

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Illustration of a man doing skull crushers.

The Skull Crushers Hypertrophy Guide

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

Skull crushers are one of the best exercises for building bigger triceps, and they’re quite good for increasing bench press strength. They also tend to be fairly easy on the…

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