Muscle Building For Skinny Women

The results of a skinny woman building muscle.

If you're a skinny woman who wants to gain weight, build muscle, and become stronger, I think you'd love our newsletter. It kicks off with a 5-part series that covers:

  • How to lift for muscle growth
  • How to eat for lean weight gain
  • How to thrive with skinny genetics
  • How to get stronger, healthier, and better looking

After that, we'll send you 1–2 newsletters per month to keep you updated on the latest muscle-building research, methods, and workouts—all of it 100% focused on gaining muscle and strength as a naturally thin woman.

8,119 newsletter subs & counting!

Illustration of a woman doing barbell back squats to gain muscle and strength.

We Help Skinny & Skinny-Fat Women Gain Muscle

For the past ten years, we've specialized in helping naturally thin people gain weight, build muscle, and become stronger. We've had clients ranging from everyday women all the way up to our Canadian Olympic women's rugby team. If you're finding it hard to gain weight, build muscle, or become stronger, this is the site for you.

This isn't a general site where we help the average person become fitter. Those sites are great, but if you're anything like us, they also drive you kind of crazy. They tend to assume that we're overweight and eager to get thinner—that we have a natural propensity to overeat. But we don't. We're naturally thin. We find it hard to gain weight. We don't need weight loss advice mixed into our strength training advice.

Here at Bony to Bombshell, we write about how to eat more calories, not fewer. About how to train for muscle mass and strength. About how to overcome the struggles of being naturally thin. And we help our clients make "bulking" transformations like these:

Before and after results of a woman building muscle and gaining weight.
Women's weight gain transformation
Before and after photo of a woman's muscle-building results.
Before and after photo of a woman's weight gain transformation

You may know us as the founders of Bony to Beastly (for skinny men) or Outlift (for everyone). Bony to Bombshell is our site for naturally thin women. 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.

Before and after results photo of a skinny man building muscle.

Marco is a naturally skinny strength coach who had already gained 63 pounds. He'd also coached clients ranging from everyday people all the way up to college, professional, and Olympic athletes.

Before and after results of a skinny guy bulking up.

Before I met Marco, I felt lost. Whenever I would try to exercise, I would lose weight. I found it so frustrating that after every failed attempt, I would spend years festering in inactivity before I could muster up the motivation to give it another go. When Marco taught me how simple this could be, I was blown away. And I gained 55 pounds while keeping my abs. I then reproduced those results with my roommate, who gained 45 pounds.

Before and after photo of Cassandra González Duquette building muscle and gaining weight.

When we realized how many other people were struggling to gain weight, we created Bony to Beastly and Bony to Bombshell. That was ten years ago, and since then, we've helped over 10,000 naturally skinny people build muscle. I also married a naturally skinny nutritionist, Cassandra. Not only has she gained 20 pounds herself (as a new mother), but she's also helped us improve our nutrition and workout program.

 

Some of Our Popular Articles

Every article on this site is about how to gain muscle and strength. Here are some of our more popular ones:

 

Our Muscle-Building Program for Women

If you’re ready to start building muscle, we can guide you through the entire process. The Bony to Bombshell Program includes a video course teaching all of the exercises, a 5-month workout program, a complete weight-gain diet guide, a recipe book, and a year-long membership in our online coaching community. You’ll be building muscle alongside other women with similar goals, and posting weekly progress updates. We’ll be here to give feedback and answer all of your questions.

Our Recent Articles

Illustration showing a skinny woman who can't gain weight.

“Why Am I So Skinny?” Why Some Women Can’t Gain Weight

By Shane Duquette and Cassandra González Duquette

When it seems like everyone else is trying to lose weight, it can feel isolating to a skinny person trying to gain weight. On top of that, some skinny women actually eat quite a lot and still can’t gain weight. We’re naturally skinny ourselves, and we’ve spent the past 15…

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Seated Cable Row With A Neutral Grip How To Do Exercise Female Woman

Seated Cable Row With Neutral Grip: Overview, How To Do It, & Tips

By Jared Polowick and Marco Walker-Ng

The seated cable row with a neutral grip is a great exercise for women who want to build some muscle in their back. You use a weighted cable machine that is set up horizontally with foot plates. Like other horizontal rowing variations, the main muscles it works are the lats,…

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Barbell Romanian Deadlift For Women

Barbell Romanian Deadlift For Women: Overview, Proper Form, & Tips

By Jared Polowick and Marco Walker-Ng

The Barbell Romanian deadlift is one of the best female lifts because it’s a compound lower-body exercise that targets your hamstrings and glutes while also training hip mobility, good posture, and balance. The barbell allows you to safely and consistently increase the weight over time, allowing for easy progressive overload.…

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How To Build A Butt In One Week

How to Make Your Butt Bigger in a Week

By Bony To Bombshell

There are four ways to make your butt bigger in one week: I’ll explain how to do all of this, and then we’ll give you some extra butt-building tips.

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Double Dumbbell Front Squat Exercise How To Do It Right

Double Dumbbell Front Squat: How To Do It Properly & Tips

By Jared Polowick and Marco Walker-Ng

The double dumbbell front squat is a great variation for women ready to progress past the dumbbell Goblet Squat. It’s a great choice because while it hits the quads and glutes, it’s also a full-body exercise that hits the anterior core, upper back, and shoulders as you stabilize the dumbbells…

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Single-Arm Dumbbell Row On Bench Female

Single-Arm Dumbbell Row on Bench: Overview, How To Do It, & Tips

By Jared Polowick and Marco Walker-Ng

The single-arm (1-arm) dumbbell row on the bench is a classic lift. It’s a great beginner exercise for building muscle in your upper back. The main muscles it works are the lats, traps, and rear delts. It’s also fairly good for your arms, though, and should stimulate a bit of…

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Dumbbell Sumo Deadlift

Dumbbell Sumo Deadlift: Overview, How-To, & Tips

By Jared Polowick and Marco Walker-Ng

The dumbbell sumo deadlift is a great variation of the conventional barbell deadlift. It helps to build strength in the quads, glutes, and hamstrings. What makes it different is that you stand in a wide stance with the dumbbell between your legs, like a sumo wrestler, and you use a…

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Best Post Workout Drinks For Women

The Best Post-Workout Drinks For Women

By Jared Polowick and Marco Walker-Ng

Right after lifting weights, your muscles are primed for growth. You just gave them a stimulus to grow, there is heightened blood flow to the area, and the body has already started the recovery process.  Getting in some protein and calories not too long after your workout is the key…

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How much weight should you lift as a female beginner?

How Much Weight Should a Female Beginner Lift?

By Jared Polowick and Marco Walker-Ng

When getting into lifting weights, it can be confusing as to how much weight you should lift. There’s no definitive answer because every woman is different. But there are some good tips to figure out what the right weight is for each exercise that matches your own current levels of…

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