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 the best muscle-building exercises to use in a hypertrophy training program.

The Best Hypertrophy Exercises

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | October 20, 2023

Different exercises are designed for different goals. Powerlifters use the squat, bench, and deadlift to demonstrate their maximal strength. Olympic weightlifters use the snatch and clean-and-jerk to demonstrate their explosive…

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Illustration of a bodybuilder doing a 2-day workout split.

The 2-Day Full-Body Workout Split (For Gaining Muscle)

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | September 9, 2024

A two-day workout split is just barely enough to maximize your rate of muscle growth, kind of. To maximize the growth of any one muscle, you need to train it…

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Illustration of a bodybuilder doing a 3-day workout split.

The 3-Day Workout Split (Full Workout Routine)

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | September 10, 2024

A 3-day workout split is enough to maximize your overall rate of muscle growth, especially if you’re still in your first couple of years of lifting. To maximize the growth…

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Illustration of a bodybuilder doing a 4-day workout split routine to gain muscle mass.

The Best 4-Day Workout Splits for Building Muscle

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | October 14, 2023

4-day workout splits are my favourite for intermediate lifters. 3-day splits are almost always better for beginners, but once you get to an intermediate level, adding a fourth day makes…

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Illustration of a muscular shirtless bodybuilder man doing a biceps workout.

The Best Biceps Workout (Dumbbell, Barbell, or Full Gym)

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | June 17, 2024

A good default is to train your biceps with 3–5 sets of vertical pulls (like chin-ups and lat pulldowns) followed by 2–5 sets of biceps curls (like preacher curls and…

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Illustration of a man doing a dumbbell pullover workout to build bigger back muscles.

The Best Dumbbell Back Exercises & Workout

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | December 11, 2023

You can build a big, strong, and balanced back with just dumbbells. Chin-ups and pull-ups are the foundation of most back workouts, but it’s pretty easy to replace them with…

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

The Best Dumbbell Arm Exercises & Workout

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | December 13, 2023

Dumbbell exercises are fantastic for building bigger arms. They’re often better than the barbell, cable, and machine variations. You don’t need anything more. Our main Bony to Beastly Program heavily emphasizes dumbbells. Some of…

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Illustration of a bodybuilder doing dumbbell goblet squats as part of his leg workout.

The Best Dumbbell Leg Exercises & Workout

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | December 15, 2023

Dumbbell leg exercises are great for beginners. They’re perfect for gaining your first 30–40 pounds of muscle. Think of exercises like goblet squats, dumbbell Romanian deadlifts, and step-ups. Our main Bony…

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Illustration of a bodybuilder building bigger back muscles with dumbbell lat exercises.

The Best Dumbbell Lat Exercises

By Shane Duquette | June 29, 2024

Your lats pull your elbows in closer to your body, meaning that the best dumbbell lat exercises are some variation of dumbbell row. And dumbbell rows are fantastic. That’s all…

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