Illustration of a skinny person building muscle and bulking up.

Build Muscle. Gain Strength. Outlift Yourself.

If you're a guy who wants to build muscle, gain strength, and get fit, I think you'd love our newsletter.

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Illustration of a man doing a dumbbell biceps curl workout to build bigger arms.

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. We have an unconditional 30-day 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:

Common Lifting Questions

Here are some of the more common lifting questions we've gotten over the years:

If you have any questions about anything, comment on 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 an Outlift energy drink and pre-workout supplement.

Pre-Workout vs Energy Drinks: Differences Explained

By Shane Duquette and Cassandra González Duquette | April 10, 2024

Pre-workouts and energy drinks both have the same main ingredient: caffeine. The difference is that pre-workouts are specifically for improving exercise performance, fitness, and muscle growth, whereas energy drinks put…

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Illustration of a weight lifter flexing his chest muscles after his Chest Day workout.

Chest Day Routine: The Best Chest, Shoulder & Triceps Workout

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | July 3, 2023

I have a fond spot for Chest Day workouts. I started bulking with absolutely no idea what I was doing. I gained my first 20 pounds while following a workout…

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Illustration of a skinny guy using an upper-body workout routine to build bigger muscles.

The Best Upper-Body Workout for Building Muscle

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | October 28, 2023

An upper-body workout trains most of the muscles in your upper body. When you split your body in two, you could train it half as much but twice as often,…

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Illustration of a man doing the dumbbell bench press exercise during his chest workout.

The Best Dumbbell Chest Exercises & Workout

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | December 12, 2023

You can bulk up your chest perfectly well with just dumbbells. In fact, you could make a strong argument that dumbbell chest exercises are better for your chest than the barbell,…

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Illustration of a bodybuilder doing dumbbell exercises to build bigger muscles.

The Best Dumbbell Exercises for Every Muscle

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | September 19, 2024

You can build an entire workout routine out of just dumbbell exercises. There’s no real disadvantage to it, either. Dumbbell exercises are almost always just as effective as barbell, cable,…

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Illustration of a bodybuilder doing the incline bench press to build a bigger upper chest muscles.

What Muscles Does the Incline Bench Press Work?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | September 22, 2024

The incline bench press works the upper chest, front delts, mid-chest, and triceps. You can emphasize your upper and mid-chest muscles by using a shallower incline (e.g. 30 degrees). You…

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The best barbell, dumbbell, and machine exercises for your upper chest.

The 5 Best Upper Chest Exercises (Dumbbell, Barbell & Machine)

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | September 22, 2024

The best upper chest exercises are the incline bench press, incline fly, landmine press, chest press machine, and feet-raised push-ups. If you have dumbbells, do an incline dumbbell bench press…

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Illustration of a shirtless man doing dips to build a bigger chest.

How to Do Dips (And Why They’re So Good)

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | May 18, 2024

Dips are one of the best exercises for building a bigger chest, and they’re one of the best muscle-building exercises overall. They’re an older exercise than the bench press, and…

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Illustration of a bodybuilder doing dips to build bigger chest muscles.

What Muscles Do Dips Work?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | September 25, 2023

Dips are an underrated exercise, and there’s some fascinating research to cover. They’re one of the best exercises for building muscle in your chest and shoulders—arguably even better than push-ups…

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