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 men's Beastly newsletter.

    27,519 newsletter subs and counting!

    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

    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…

    Read More
    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…

    Read More
    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…

    Read More
    Illustration showing Starting Strength facing off versus Stronglifts 5x5

    Starting Strength vs StrongLifts 5×5: What’s the Difference?

    By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | October 5, 2020

    What’s the difference between Starting Strength and StrongLifts 5×5? Which workout program is better for beginners, which is better for building muscle, and which is better overall? There are a…

    Read More
    Illustration of a man doing a low-bar back squat, as recommended in Starting Strength.

    A Review of Starting Strength for Building Muscle

    By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | June 26, 2020

    Starting Strength was created by the former powerlifter Mark Rippetoe as a beginner program for gaining general strength. It has its roots in powerlifting culture, but it’s not a powerlifting…

    Read More
    Illustration of a man doing general strength training

    How to Gain Strength

    By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | June 5, 2020

    What’s the best way to get stronger? We get this question a lot. CrossFit claims to emphasize functional exercises to develop functional strength. Is functional strength a real thing? And…

    Read More
    Illustration of a man doing a Zercher squat.

    The Hypertrophy Rep Range: How Many Reps to Build Muscle?

    By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | June 1, 2020

    How many reps should you do to gain muscle mass? In strength training, doing five reps per set is a popular way to gain mass. In bodybuilding, though, where the…

    Read More
    Illustration of a weight lifter flexing his shoulder muscles after a Shoulder Day workout.

    The Best Shoulder Day Workout for Building Muscle

    By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | July 6, 2023

    Shoulder Day is a workout designed to bulk up your shoulders, making them bigger, stronger, and broader. You can also use it as an opportunity to sneak in some extra…

    Read More
    Illustration of a weight lifter doing shoulder exercises to build bigger front, side, and rear delts.

    The Best Shoulder Exercises (For Your Front, Side & Rear Delts)

    By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | July 6, 2023

    Your shoulders are made up of three different heads—the front delts, side delts, and rear delts. Each head moves your shoulders in a different direction, so each needs a different…

    Read More