Muscle testing is a bioenergetic assessment tool that many healing arts' practitioners use to determine the nature of imbalances and therapeutic priority. A comprehensive understanding of the art and skillful application of the technique is vital to consistent, accurate and replicable results. Muscle testing has been likened to a kind of body biofeedback used to evaluate changes in the body's subtle energy field and has been used for over 50 years by healing arts' practitioners in clinics throughout the world.
In the 1960s, the late, Dr. George Goodheart, utilized muscle testing as an energetic diagnostic tool to assess muscle, nerve and meridian energy connections. More than just an energetic diagnostic procedure, his discoveries led to the creation of a new system of healing that came to be known as Applied Kinesiology.
In addition to assessing the strength of an individual muscle’s response, muscle testing can be used to assess the body's energetic response to specific stimuli. All types of stress (biochemical, electromagnetic, physical, emotional, and mental) impact the body's energy field(s) and subsequently register on the nervous system, creating a change in muscle response, which can be effectively monitored through a specific muscle testing/challenge technique.
Muscle testing has also proven to be an exceptionally helpful tool in the assessment of imbalances and evaluation of therapeutic options. It can help the practitioner to determine an individualized program tailored to the nutritional, homeopathic, botanical, etc, needs of the person. While this art and science requires a certain amount of physical skill both in application and interpretation, the real challenge is in the ability of the practitioner to work within the subtle areas of "inner communication". Confidence and clarity as well as accuracy and consistency come with practice and experience.
Today there are many expansions and differentiation of Applied Kinesiology (AK) including Bioenergetic Sensitivity & Enzyme Therapy (BioSet), BioEnergetic Synchronization Technique (BEST), Clinical Kinesiology (CK), Contact Reflex Analysis (CRA), Matrix Energetics (ME), Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Technique (NAET), Jaffe-Mellor Technique (JMT), Neural Emotional Technique (NET), Body Talk, Total Body Modification (TBM). Omura O-Ring Test, Pulse Testing, Auricular Medicine and many others.
