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:

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 a man lifting a calf to progressively overload his growing muscles.

What’s Progressive Overload & How Should You Do It?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | September 30, 2021

Progressive overload is one of the foundational principles of both strength training and hypertrophy training. When you lift a challenging amount of weight, you provoke muscle growth, making your muscles…

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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 showing a man gaining muscle while losing weight.

Body Recomposition Supplements That Burn Fat & Build Muscle

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

There are a few supplements that are good for both building muscle and losing fat, making them perfect for body recomposition. They all fall into one of three categories: Let’s…

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Illustration of a muscular bodybuilder climbing through the mythical anabolic window.

The Anabolic Window: Both Fact & Fiction

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | September 18, 2023

The “anabolic window” is an old bodybuilding term. A few years ago, it was pilloried by the evidence-based fitness community, and perhaps rightfully so—the requirements were woefully strict. As so…

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What is a Recomp? Body Recomposition Explained

By Shane Duquette | June 25, 2024

Recomp is short for body recomposition, which is when you build muscle and lose fat at the same time. It’s the holy grail of the fitness industry. It’s actually pretty…

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Diagram illustration of a bodybuilder showing the short head of his biceps.

The Best Short Head Biceps Exercises

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | June 15, 2024

The short head of your biceps is the simple head. Unlike the long head of your biceps, it doesn’t cross the shoulder joint. Well, it might, but it seems to…

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Illustration of a bunch of men deadlifting.

Hypertrophy Training Volume: How Many Sets to Build Muscle?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | April 3, 2024

If you’re following a good hypertrophy training program, you should be able to maximize your rate of muscle growth with 9–22 sets per muscle per week. But that depends on…

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Illustration of a bodybuilder building bigger biceps.

How to Build Bigger Biceps

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | May 21, 2021

Our biceps aren’t big muscles. They’re a mere fraction of the size of our quads, glutes, shoulders, and chests. But they’re disproportionately prominent. Building bigger biceps can make us look…

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Illustration of a bodybuilder doing lying dumbbell biceps curls.

How to Do Lying Dumbbell Biceps Curls

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

The lying biceps curl is a variation of the dumbbell curl. The difference is that it works your biceps through a deeper range of motion, challenging your biceps under a…

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