Your day is full of choices. Should you take this road or another to work? Should you buy this brand of bananas or the other? A thousand little decisions must be made each day. Muscle testing is a tool that you can use anywhere to help with choices, big and small. Once you learn the basic techniques, you’ll be using it a number of ways to help you make those choices.
First Used for Medical Diagnosis
Applied kinesiology, or muscle testing, was defined in 1964 by a doctor named George Goodheart. He discovered that the muscles in the human body responded differently to various states of injury, illness or mental states. Originally used to determine such things as organ disease, allergic responses and nutritional deficiencies, people have experimented with the technique to tap into answers to other questions unrelated to health.
The Weak or Strong Arm Test
This was the original technique used in muscle testing. It requires two people to perform, one to direct the statements and the other to respond.
Both people stand with the practitioner facing the responder. The responder extends one arm straight out to their side. To calibrate the person’s response, the practitioner first has the responder make an obviously true statement, such as “My name is Jane.”
The practitioner then gently pushes down on the responder’s arm to test for the muscle resistance. The responder then makes an obviously false statement, such as “I am 10 feet tall” and the practitioner again pushes down on the arm to feel the resistance.
When the person makes a true statement, their arm should be harder to push down than when speaking a false one. True statements have a strong response, false ones have a weak response. This calibration helps the practitioner feel the difference between the two. In a clinical setting, once the calibration has been done, the practitioner will have the responder make a series of statements related to the health issue being investigated. For example, questions to determine allergic responses to foods might include:
- I always have a reaction to drinking milk
- I can eat cookies containing peanuts without feeling ill
The practitioner will evaluate which statements produced a strong and weak response and use the results to form a diagnosis and treatment plan.
Every Day Muscle Testing
You won’t always have someone around you to do the two-person test, so there are ways to do muscle testing on yourself while making the statements.
Finger test #1 – Make a circle with your thumb and index finger on both hands. Link the circles. Muscle test by trying to pull your fingers apart. A strong (true or yes) response won’t let you break the link. A weak response (false or no) breaks the link.
Finger test #2 – Extend the middle finger on one hand and rest the index finger on top of it. Push down on the middle finger with the index finger as you make statements to determine the weak and strong responses.
Body leaning – Stand straight and become aware of your center of gravity a few inches behind your navel. Make your statements and watch/feel for a slight leaning forward on a strong response and leaning back on a weak.
As with the arm strength test, calibrate your own muscle testing by first making true statements, then false ones to feel the difference.
What Can You Test?
The clearest responses come from statements that have a true/yes or false/no response. Experiment with different statement styles until you find the approach that works best for you. Some examples of such statements include:
- I should take Interstate 5 home from work
- It would be best for me to buy this particular watermelon
- I should check this book out from the library and read it next
Double check your results against alternative statements. To determine the best route home, test the statement “I should take Highway 101 home from work” and compare the response to the first statement. The stronger of the two responses is your best way home.
You may find other ways to muscle test that work better for you. Once you can feel the difference between a weak and strong response in a muscle, you can do muscle testing at work, in the grocery store, at your son’s Little League game, anywhere you need to make a good decision.
