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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 men's Beastly 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 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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    Illustration of a bodybuilder's full body split into three pieces.

    Full-Body Workouts vs Splits: Which Builds More Muscle?

    By Shane Duquette | June 2, 2024

    A new meta-analysis by Ramos-Campo gathered together all fourteen studies comparing full-body workout routines against split workout routines. This is the latest study, and it includes all of the previous…

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    Illustration of a weight lifter doing a 6-day workout split to build muscle.

    The Best 6-Day Workout Split for Building Muscle

    By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | June 21, 2023

    6-day workout splits can be remarkably good for building muscle. With so many training days to play with, you can take several different approaches, ranging from minimalism to total maximalism.…

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    Illustration of a lifter doing a 5-day workout split to build more muscle.

    The Best 5-Day Workout Splits for Building Muscle

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

    5-day workout splits can be incredibly good for building muscle if you program them properly. When you’re training this often, it’s easy to beat up your hands, tire out your…

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    Illustration of an athlete following an Upper/Lower Split workout routine to build muscle.

    The Best Upper/Lower Workout Split for Building Muscle

    By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | November 9, 2023

    When I first met Marco, he had just finished studying under Eric Cressey, the head strength coach for the New York Yankees, and was working as the strength coach for professional…

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