If your shoulder workout doesn’t feel sufficiently serious unless you’re pressing big dumbbells overhead, John Meadows’ 6 Ways exercise might recalibrate your definition of heavy.

The late bodybuilding coach – better known as Mountain Dog – was responsible for more than a few interesting exercises that have since found their way into mainstream workout programmes, but ‘6 Ways’ was one of his trademarks. He included them among his top shoulder exercises and regularly programmed them as a high-rep finisher for polishing off a workout with a serious delt pump.

The movement is an incredibly effective shoulder-burner, but the most interesting part is just how little weight you need.

Meadows himself used 10lb dumbbells – less than those 5kg bells at the shallow end of your gym’s dumbbell rack – for sets of 10, and occasionally went even lighter. That’s because one rep isn’t simply one raise. You’re moving the dumbbells out to the sides, bringing them around in front of you, raising them overhead, then reversing the entire sequence without putting them down.

By the time you’ve completed 10 ‘reps’, your shoulders have spent an enormous amount of time holding those dumbbells away from your body.

Meadows typically prescribed three sets of 10 reps, but if we’re breaking those reps down into the six ‘beats’ each contains, that’s 180 individual movements the delts have to manage. This alone should give you a clue as to why reaching for your regular lateral-raise weights would be a bit ambitious.

• Stand tall or sit on a bench holding a pair of light dumbbells at your side
• Lift the dumbbells laterally, away from your body, until your arms are parallel to the ground.
• From here, sweep the dumbbells around in an arc until they are nearly touching in front of your face, arms still fully extended.
• Next, raise the dumbbells directly upwards until they are above your head. Keep your arms extended though – don’t let this turn into a press.
• Now reverse the movement exactly, coming back down in front, and then round to the top of the lateral raise position, and finally down to your sides.
• Count the 6 points in your head to make sure you hit all the beats:

1. Lateral raise
2. Sweep to the front
3. Raise above your head
4. Lower back to front
5. Sweep round to sides
6. Lower to start position.

1. Build Your Delts with Light Weights

The obvious appeal is being able to make your shoulders work extremely hard without grabbing the biggest dumbbells in the gym.

Your arms spend most of each rep extended away from your body, creating a long lever between the dumbbells and your shoulders. With this leverage, even what might look like ‘tiny’ weights can still generate plenty of (painful) torque at the shoulder.

If heavy pressing has pride of place in your shoulder workouts, 6 Ways gives you an opportunity to add more direct delt work without simply adding more presses.

2. Keep Your Shoulders Working for Longer

A single rep takes… a while.

You’re moving laterally, horizontally and overhead before reversing the entire sequence, with basically zero opportunity for the delts to completely relax between positions.

That prolonged time under tension is largely what makes the exercise so unpleasant – and effective.

3. Hit Your Shoulders from Multiple Angles

A lateral raise predominantly asks you to lift your arms, well, laterally. A front raise brings them forwards. An overhead raise continues that movement above your head.

6 Ways stitches all three together.

That means your middle and front delts have to work hard as the position of your arms changes, while your upper traps and the muscles responsible for controlling your shoulder blades become increasingly involved as you move overhead and as fatigue creeps up.

4. Add Shoulder Volume without Another Heavy Press

There’s nothing wrong with heavy overhead pressing, but more isn’t automatically better.

If you’ve already bench pressed, incline pressed or overhead pressed during the week, adding more shoulder work doesn’t necessarily have to mean adding more heavy loading. Meadows’ move is handy for anyone dealing with shoulder overuse injuries, or who only has access to light weights.

Meadows frequently used 6 Ways towards the end of shoulder sessions, when the goal was accumulating more work and chasing a pump rather than demonstrating maximal strength.

Side/ middle delts: Work hardest during the lateral portions of the movement, lifting and controlling the dumbbells away from your body.

Front delts: Take on more work as the dumbbells travel forwards and continue overhead.

Upper traps: Assist as your arms travel above shoulder height and your shoulder blades rotate upwards.

Rotator cuff: Works to stabilise the shoulder joint as your arms move through several different positions.

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