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 programs. Your 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:
- How to build muscle (for everyone)
- How to bulk up (for skinny people)
- How to recomp (for overweight people)
- How to do cardio
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:
- Progressive overload
- The best hypertrophy exercises
- How to structure your workouts
- How many reps should you do per set?
- How long should you rest between sets?
- How many sets should you do per workout?
- How often should you work out?
- How range of motion affects muscle growth
- How close to failure should you lift?
- How fast should you lift and lower weights?
- Which isolation exercises do you need?
- How to do supersets
- How to do giant sets
- How to do drop sets
- How to do lengthened partials
- Stimulus-to-Fatigue Ratio
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.
- What training split should you use?
- 3-day workout splits
- 4-day workout splits
- 5-day workout splits
- 6-day workout splits
- The Bro Split
- The Upper/Lower Split
- The Push/Pull/Legs Split
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:
- How to gain weight with a fast metabolism
- Is lifting weights good for burning fat?
- How much protein do you need?
- How to sleep for muscle growth
- How to schedule weight training with cardio
If you have any questions about anything, drop a comment in the most relevant article. I answer every comment.
Recent Articles
How Sedentariness Affects Muscle Growth & Fat Loss (Even for People Who Exercise)
It’s fairly well established that if you spend most of your time being sedentary (aka sitting), then you’ll burn fewer calories, and you may find yourself getting out of shape,…
Read MoreIs Olympic Weightlifting Good for Gaining Muscle Size?
Is Olympic weightlifting good for building muscle? It depends on what we compare it against. Any type of training that challenges our muscles with heavy loads has the potential to…
Read MoreHigh-Frequency Training: Should You Train Your Muscles Every Day?
A common question we get is whether we can train our muscles every day. And yes, that’s okay. There’s even a name for it: high-frequency training. The idea is that…
Read MoreThe Best Lifting Straps & Grips for Building Muscle
When you first start lifting weights, it’s common for your grip to be a limiting factor. After all, if you’ve never trained your grip, it’s probably weak. And since you…
Read MoreHow to Warm Up Before Lifting Weights
What’s the best way to warm up before lifting weights? Should we do cardio? Does that help? Is it necessary? And should you stretch? Some research shows that stretching can…
Read MoreHow Range of Motion Affects Muscle Growth
There are three conflicting ideas about how the range of motion we use while lifting weights affects our muscle growth: The first idea is that lifting with a larger range…
Read MoreThe Most Popular Lifts (According to Google)
Which lifts are more popular? I’d always kind of assumed that with people who are into strength training, squats would be the most popular, but that with people who are…
Read MoreExercise Machines Vs Free Weights for Gaining Muscle Size
Are exercise machines as good as free weights for stimulating muscle growth? It’s often said that free weights engage more overall mass, do a better job of activating our muscles,…
Read MoreHow to Grow Stubborn Muscles
How do you know if a muscle is stubborn? Much of the time, when someone thinks they have a stubborn muscle, it isn’t actually stubborn, they just aren’t training it…
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