Muscle Building & strength 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.

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 weight gainer supplement.

Should Skinny Women Use Weight Gainers?

By Shane Duquette and Cassandra González Duquette

“Weight gainers,” also known as “mass gainers,” are high-calorie supplements designed to help naturally skinny women gain weight. They’re almost always made of protein powder, carb powder, and some flavouring to make them more palatable. The idea is that by drinking all of these calories, you can gain weight more…

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Illustration of a skinny-fat woman.

The Skinny-Fat Workout & Diet Guide for Women

By Shane Duquette and Cassandra González Duquette

“Skinny-fat” isn’t a body type. It’s not a scientific term. But it’s commonly used by people who have a higher body-fat percentage and a lower degree of muscle mass. Someone who has a normal body weight but is out of shape. For instance, if you have excess fat around your…

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Illustration of women using either a barbell or dumbbell home gym to build muscle.

What Equipment Do You Need to Build Muscle?

By Shane Duquette and Cassandra González Duquette

One of the most common questions we get is, “What equipment do I need to build muscle?” You can use a few different setups, but some setups are particularly good for gaining muscle size and strength. In this article, we’ll go over the pros and cons of: Training at a…

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Illustration showing a variety of female bodies, ranging from thin to muscular.

Survey Results: The Most Attractive Female Body Composition (Muscle, Fat & Proportions)

By Shane Duquette and Cassandra González Duquette

We’ve been getting requests to conduct research on female attractiveness for over ten years now. And we’ve finally done it! We surveyed 1,072 men, asking them to rate varying amounts of muscle and body fat, as well as which proportions they preferred and what muscles they found most attractive. We…

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Illustration of a skinny women doing goblet squats to build muscle.

Beginner Muscle & Strength Workout for Women

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng

We’ve given you a fair bit of information about why building muscle is so great, and also about why it can be so hard for naturally skinny women. At this point you might be thinking, okay, yeah, this sounds great—I want more curves, more muscle, and more strength—but how do…

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Illustration of a birth control pill.

How Do Birth Control Pills Affect Muscle Growth?

By Shane Duquette and Cassandra González Duquette

A new study found that women who weren’t taking birth control pills (oral contraceptives) gained 60% more muscle than those who did. The study also found that the women taking contraceptives lost slightly less fat, though those findings didn’t reach statistical significance. Birth control pills are one of the most…

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

How to Gain Muscle Size & Strength With Squats

By Shane Duquette and Marco Walker-Ng

Squats are the bulking lift. They’re absolutely amazing for bulking up our quads and glutes, and they stimulate more overall muscle mass than any other lift, with the possible exception of the deadlift. But there are many different squat variations, each with their own distinct advantages and disadvantages. For powerlifters, the low-bar squat…

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The Best Muscle-Building & Weight-Gain Supplements for Women

By Shane Duquette and Cassandra González Duquette

There are only a few supplements that are good for helping women build muscle and gain weight. They’re well-researched, affordable, healthy, and safe, too. But good luck finding them amongst the thousands of ineffective supplements lining the shelves. Especially since most of those supplements are marketed towards men who are…

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Illustration of a skinny woman eating a muscle-building diet even though she's full and miserable.

Muscle-Building Diet Guide—for Skinny Women Who Want to GAIN Weight

By Shane Duquette and Cassandra González Duquette

In this article, we’re going to talk about a muscle-building diet designed for naturally skinny women who are trying to gain weight. Make no mistake, this isn’t a weight-loss diet. It’s not even a diet for the average woman who wants to become leaner and stronger. This is a bulking diet,…

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