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 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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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Illustration of an athlete doing a squat workout to build a bigger and stronger lower body.

The Best Lower-Body Workout for Building Muscle

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | November 8, 2023

“Leg Day” and “Lower Body Workout” sound similar, and indeed they are. The difference is that Leg Days are usually used by bodybuilders, whereas Lower Body Workouts are more often…

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Illustration of a bodybuilder doing hypertrophy training to gain muscle mass.

The Hypertrophy Training Guide: How to Lift for Muscle Size

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

Hypertrophy training is designed specifically for stimulating muscle growth. It’s by far the best style of training for building muscle. Bodybuilders use it to build more aesthetic physiques. Powerlifters use…

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Illustration showing a push, pull, legs workout split routine.

Are 3-Day Push/Pull/Legs Workout Splits Good for Building Muscle?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | June 9, 2020

Push/Pull/Legs Workout Splits have been a popular way of building muscle for several decades. The 6-day version is beloved by many serious bodybuilders, while the 3-day version is more popular…

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Illustration of a man working out his biceps.

How Often Should You Work Out Per Week to Build Muscle?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | November 14, 2020

If you want to build muscle quickly, you need to work out often enough to keep your muscles growing all week long. There are two key questions we need to…

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And illustration of a beginner going rucking to improve his cardiovascular fitness.

How to Ruck—The Complete Beginner Guide

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | September 5, 2023

Rucking is perhaps the safest, most effective, and most efficient way to improve your cardiorespiratory fitness (study, study, study). It can be two or three times as efficient as brisk…

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