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. Your results are fully guaranteed.

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.

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 skinny guy doing an aggressive bulk, building muscle as quickly as he can.

Aggressive Bulking: How to Build Muscle FAST

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | Mar 19, 2023

If you’re a skinny guy desperate to build muscle fast, I get it. I remember hungering not for food but for muscle. I was too eager to heed any of the many warnings. I gained weight as fast as I possibly could. And to my great surprise, it worked. I…

Illustration of a tub of weight gainer powder.

The Best Bulking Supplements for Skinny Guys

Over 5,000 shares and 500 comments later, here’s our revised supplement guide for skinny guys trying to build muscle in time for last summer. We’ll cover supplements that speed up muscle growth, such as creatine. We’ll review supplements that help skinny guys bulk up, like mass gainers. We’ll talk about pre-workout…

Illustration of a skinny guy bulking up and becoming muscular. Illustrated by Shane Duquette from Bony to Beastly.

The Skinny Beginner’s Guide to Bulking

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | Jan 26, 2023

In this guide, we’ll teach you how to bulk up, even if you’re a skinny beginner. This is the method we’ve used to help over 10,000 skinny guys build muscle, with clients ranging from deskworkers to Olympic athletes. It’s also the method Marco and I used to gain over 60…

Illustration of a skinny beginner doing a 3-day full-body workout routine to build muscle and bulk up.

The Full-Body Workout Guide for Beginners

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | Jan 25, 2023

If you’re a beginner, 3-day full-body workout routines are perfect for gaining muscle mass and strength. They’re also incredibly good for your health. Once you reach an intermediate level, they remain great, but a few more good options open up. Until then, full-body workouts are the best. There’s nothing better.…

Illustration showing a skinny bodybuilder flexing his back, doing a back double biceps pose.

How to Train All Your Back Muscles

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | Dec 12, 2022

Building a bigger back isn’t as simple as it first seems. Our backs are made up of layers of overlapping muscles, all of which can work together, but many of which have different functions. Even within the same back muscle, different regions respond better to different exercise variations. For example,…

Illustration showing an overweight man cutting fat and revealing his muscle underneath.

The Cutting Guide: How to Burn Fat While Building A Bit of Muscle

By Shane Duquette | Nov 21, 2022

Cutting is when you burn fat while keeping your muscle. You may even be able to gain a bit of muscle while cutting, especially if you’re overweight, out of shape, or new to lifting weights. Whether you’re bulking or cutting, the goal is to be strong, muscular, lean, and healthy.…

Illustration showing a skinny guy who bulked up like a Hollywood actor.

Hollywood Bulking Transformations ARE Realistic for Skinny Guys

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | Oct 4, 2022

There are a ton of articles talking about how Hollywood body transformations are unrealistic. There’s some truth in that. Most guys are overweight. For them, even just dieting down to a healthy body-fat percentage can be surprisingly difficult. Most Hollywood transformations are coming at it from the other side, though.…

Illustration showing two skinny guys with different bone structures and muscle-building genetics.

The Grey Truth About Skinny Muscle-Building Genetics

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | Sep 19, 2022

There’s a war raging in the natural muscle-building community. The white warriors are fed up with nihilistic blackpill hardgainers who give up on building muscle before they even start. They argue we should set lofty goals and fight to accomplish them, genetics be damned. After all, they started off skinny,…

Illustration showing a skinny guy bulking up by becoming stronger.

Should Skinny Guys Get Strong to Get Big?

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng, BHSc, PTS | Sep 6, 2022

A bigger muscle is a stronger muscle. If you want to get big, you’ve got to get strong. That was the main bulking dogma when I was first trying to bulk up, but I didn’t understand it properly, and my results left me feeling confused. Everyone was preaching some variation…

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.