Muscle-Building for Skinny Guys

Animation of a skinny guy bulking up, building muscle, and becoming muscular.

Illustration of a skinny ectomorph building muscle

We Help Hardgainers, Skinny & Skinny-Fat Guys Bulk Up

For the past 12 years, we've specialized in helping skinny guys build muscle, get strong, and gain weight. People say it's a small niche, but if this bulk goes according to plan, we'll soon be the biggest community on the internet.

I'm Shane Duquette, and I gained 55 pounds in a little over two years. I was lucky. I had the help of my business partner, Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS, PN, a naturally thin strength coach who'd already gained 60 pounds. We also helped our other business partner, Jared Polowick, gain 50 pounds.

Before and after photos showing Shane Duquette's ectomorph muscle-building transformation

Before and after photos showing Marco Walker-Ng building muscle as a skinny ectomorph.

Before and after photo of a skinny guy bulking up and gaining muscle

We're the founders of Bony to Beastly (for skinny men), Bony to Bombshell (for skinny women), and Outlift. We've helped over 10,000 skinny people build muscle, with clients ranging from college students to senior citizens, MDs to PhDs, and office workers all way the way up to college, professional, and Olympic athletes.

Before and after photos showing a skinny fat transformation.

Before and after photos showing the results from doing the Bony to Beastly Program

Before and after photo of a skinny guy leanly building muscle and bulking up in one year

Before and after photo of a skinny guy bulking up his shoulders and becoming muscular

The proof is in the smoothie, too. We consistently get the best bulking transformations on the internet. Check out these muscle-building transformations from guys doing the Bony to Beastly Program.

Bigger, Stronger, & Fitter

Bony guys are defined by their scaffolding. We're here to help you fill out that frame with muscle, reaping all the long-term health and fitness benefits as you bulk up.

Maybe you're a "hardgainer," where no matter how much you eat, you can't gain weight. You aren't crazy. There's genetic variation in stomach size, appetite, and metabolism. Many of us are genetically predisposed to thinness. We need to find a diet that suits us.
Maybe you're an "ectomorph," with thinner wrists and narrower shoulders, worried your frame can't support muscle growth. We had that same fear. It isn't true. Thin guys tend to be able to build muscle faster than other body types.
Maybe you're skinny-fat, getting bigger and smaller without ever getting leaner or stronger. That's frustrating. You're one of the rare few who eats the right amount of food, yet it's being stored as fat instead of muscle. We need to reverse that, and we can.

We're the Costco of muscle. You can find anything you want, but everything is in bulk. We write about how to eat a healthy weight-gain diet, how to train for muscle size, and how to live a lifestyle that supports muscle, strength, and overall fitness.

If you want us to walk you through the entire process of bulking up, check out our Bony to Beastly Program. We'll teach you everything you need to know, including diet, training, and lifestyle. We'll answer all your questions, give you feedback along the way, and support you through every step of the process.

We've also written hundreds of free articles about how to build muscle, eat a good diet, and live a healthy lifestyle. Feel free to drop a comment. I answer all of them.

Thin Genetics

Thin guys often have different genetics, giving us different struggles and goals and influencing how we eat, lift, and live.

The Art of Bulking

The only way to get bigger is to gain weight. The best way to gain weight is to prioritize muscle growth—to bulk. Nobody knows bulking better than we do.

How to Train Your Muscles

One of the best ways to improve your results is to improve your training. The more muscle growth you can stimulate, the more calories your muscles will gobble up, leaving fewer to store as body fat. We'll show you how to stimulate more growth.

Plus, you may want to develop a certain muscle. Perhaps you're tired of having a thin neck, lanky arms, or a small chest. The best way to develop a specific muscle is to train it. We'll show you how.

How to Eat a Good Diet

It isn't hard to learn about how to eat a nutritious diet. However, most of that advice is for overweight people struggling to lose weight. We have the opposite problem. We need an abundant diet that's rich in calories and nutrients, supporting our health and muscle growth.

How to Build Muscle at Home

Gyms are great, but you can build just as much muscle at home. I've bulked with adjustable dumbbells in my small apartment. Now I lift weights in my barbell home gym. In a pinch, you can even bulk with bodyweight workouts. You can use whatever you have, but be smart about it.

How to Improve Your Appearance

I know, I know. We're supposed to work out to develop our inner beauty and fortitude. But it doesn't hurt to look great while we do it. Most of the advice on the internet is either politically correct or distorted by the manosphere. That's why we've consulted with the top attractiveness researchers and conducted our own surveys.

How to Get Leaner, Fitter & Healthier

All of our articles consider health and fitness. We're not in the bodybuilding or powerlifting scene. We're part of the fitness industry. We're natural lifters who want to be strong, fit, and healthy. Still, there are two things naturally thin guys need to know:

Muscle-Building Supplements

Supplements are overrated but helpful. We don't sell supplements or use any affiliate links, keeping our supplement recommendations as unbiased as possible.

Calculators

Ideal Weight & Muscle Measurements Calculator: This calculator asks for your height, wrist circumference, and goal body fat percentage, then it tells you your ideal body weight and muscle measurements.
Natural Muscular Potential Calculator: This calculator uses your height, wrist circumference, and ankle circumference to estimate how big you can build your muscles.
Bulking Calorie Calculator: This calculator lets you pick how leanly or aggressively you want to bulk, includes macronutrient recommendations, and has an option for hardgainers (who have especially hellish metabolisms).
Cutting Calorie Calculator: This calculator lets you pick how quickly you want to lose weight, includes macronutrient recommendations, and is optimized for gaining/maintaining muscle.
Body Recomposition Calorie Calculator: This calculator gives you recommendations that will help you build muscle and burn fat at the same time.
At-Home Body Fat Percentage Calculator (Navy Method): This method accounts for muscle growth, making it the easiest and best way to monitor your body fat percentage if you lift weights. All you need is a measuring tape.
FFMI calculator: FFMI is like BMI except that it measures lean mass. It's how bodybuilders compare their muscularity with one another. An "athletic" FFMI is good enough for most people, though.

Kick back, relax, and enjoy some moderately heavy reading. We'll teach you everything you need to know to go from lean to mean, from stick to thick, from Bony to Beastly.

Our Recent Articles

Illustration of a male bodybuilder eating a giant muscle-building meal.

How Many Meals Should You Eat Per Day While Bulking?

By Shane Duquette and Cassandra Duquette | Jun 19, 2025

Bodybuilders used to think that they needed to eat seven meals per day while bulking. They thought that if they didn’t eat often enough, their bodies would shift into “starvation mode,” which would cause them to gain less muscle and store more body fat. Some of them would even wake…

Illustration of a man having a healthy, high-calorie bulking smoothie for breakfast.

The Best Breakfast Recipes for Bulking: Quick, Easy, and Healthy

By Shane Duquette and Cassandra Duquette | Jun 17, 2025

I’m a naturally skinny guy with a small stomach, and I wake up without much of an appetite. If I force down a big bulking breakfast, I tend to feel sluggish for a few hours. But if I skip breakfast, I fall behind on calories, and my stomach is small,…

Illustration of a man losing his hair because of intermittent fasting.

Intermittent Fasting May Cause Hair Loss: Research Explained

By Shane Duquette | Jun 13, 2025

I was excited about intermittent fasting when it first started becoming popular. I don’t have an appetite when I wake up, and I love the feeling of black coffee on an empty stomach. It didn’t work very well for me, though. I’m a naturally skinny guy with a small stomach…

Illustration of a bodybuilder using turkesterone to build muscle.

Does Turkesterone Improve Muscle Growth? (Explaining the Scam)

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | Jun 9, 2025

Turkesterone is one of the most popular (and infamous) muscle-building supplements on the market. Joe Rogan, More Plates More Dates, and Vitruvian Physique have all discussed turkesterone’s benefits. Most famously of all, Greg Doucette touts the benefits of his turkesterone supplement (Turk Builder) several times per week to hundreds of…

Men with different body shapes, levels of muscularity, and degrees of leanness. Illustrated by Shane Duquette.

How to Build an Aesthetic Physique

By Shane Duquette | Jun 9, 2025

Most men want to have an aesthetic physique. Few know exactly what that means. For example, when they guess the degree of muscularity women prefer, they’re off by thirty pounds (study). Many have a deeper misunderstanding, failing to connect their appearance to their fitness and strength. Some shun aesthetics, mistakenly thinking…

An illustration of a man with the perfect body weight and amount of muscle, with an attractive BMI and FFMI.

How Muscular Should You Get? Ideal Male Body Weight & FFMI

By Shane Duquette | Jun 9, 2025

I want to give you an idea about what body weight you should aim for. You’ll know exactly how much more muscle you should build, and exactly how much fat you should lose. You also know how heavy you should get when bulking, and how light you should get when…

Illustration of a skinny guy ranked against a fit and athletic guy.

Do Girls Like Skinny Guys? (Survey Results)

By Shane Duquette | Jun 6, 2025

I surveyed a thousand women to see if they like skinny guys. In the first survey, I used photos. In the second, I used my own illustrations. I’ve also been through all the research, including speaking with the lead researcher on the most influential paper that studied this. And I’m…

lllustration of a man with exceptionally broad shoulders and big side delts, giving him an exaggerated v-taper.

The V-Taper Physique Myth

By Shane Duquette | May 8, 2025

When most guys think of the most attractive male physique, they think of a V-taper body shape with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. That isn’t wrong. There’s quite a bit of research showing that men with broader shoulders and narrower waists are more attractive. The V-taper physique isn’t a…

The best bulking books, courses, and programs for skinny guys trying to build muscle.

The Best Bulking Programs for Skinny Beginners in 2025 (Reviewed)

By Shane Duquette | May 3, 2025

To find the five best bulking programs for skinny beginners, we surveyed our 26,000 naturally thin newsletter subscribers. Most of them have tried several different bulking programs, some of which worked, and many of which didn’t. We’ve also bulked up ourselves. Marco is naturally skinny, he has a degree in…

If none of these articles tickle your fancy, we've got dozens more.

Or if you're ready to start building muscle, check out our bulking program.