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

Diagram showing the various back muscles.

What Muscles Do Pull-Ups Work?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | May 22, 2023

Pull-ups, often conflated with chin-ups, are a compound exercise for your upper back. They’ll give you a wide back and thick arms—and we’ll talk about which back muscles they’re best…

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Illustration of a man lifting weights to build muscle as quickly as possible.

How Long Does it Take to Build Muscle?

By Shane Duquette | July 8, 2024

It takes most men about a year to gain their first 20 pounds of muscle. Those first 20 pounds are enough to add 1–2 inches to your arms and bump…

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Illustration showing a man gaining muscle while losing weight.

The Best Supplements for Burning Fat & Building 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 skinny person building muscle.

How Many Calories Does It Take To Build a Pound of Muscle?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | May 31, 2023

In theory, it takes about 800 calories to build a pound of muscle (study). That’s true in some situations, but our metabolisms can adapt, increasing the amount of energy it…

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Illustration of a strong, healthy man doing as many push-ups as he can.

How Many Push-Ups Should You Be Able To Do in a Row?

By Shane Duquette | September 13, 2024

A man in good shape should be able to do 30–40 push-ups. One recent study found that going from under 10 push-ups to over 30 was associated with a 75%…

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A bodybuilder doing an AMRAP set of push-ups to build bigger muscles.

What Does AMRAP Mean? Techniques & Benefits Explained

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

AMRAP means As Many Reps/Rounds As Possible. It’s useful when you don’t have full control over how much weight you’re lifting (like with bodyweight exercises) or how intense your cardio…

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Graph showing the percentage of male weight lifters who can bench press 225 pounds.

Is 225 a Good Bench Press? What Percentage of Men Can Do It?

By Shane Duquette | May 7, 2024

A few years ago, Greg Nuckols asked his Stronger by Science readers how long they’d been strength training and how much weight they could bench press. He found that the…

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Illustration of a man doing push-ups to build muscle.

How Many Push-Ups Should You Do Per Day?

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

You should do more push-ups than last time. For example, let’s say in your last workout, you got 13 push-ups in your first set, 11 in your second, and 9…

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Diagram showing how our muscle insertions affect our strength.

Muscle Size vs Strength: Is Gaining Muscle Mass Good for Gaining Strength?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | July 20, 2021

Many people start weight training because they want to improve their appearance. They focus on building bigger muscles. Hypertrophy training. Bodybuilding. And that’s great. Building bigger muscles can make us…

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