It’s a long word, and it has a long history (over 100 years), but in short, holistic kinesiology is an effective method for helping you feel well and whole again.
From a holistic perspective all parts of you are interconnected.
For example, your back is connected to your brain, which is connected to your thoughts and emotions, which are also connected to your soul and spirit, which communicate with your entire body, which is always talking to you…if you understand the language!
So where and how does kinesiology fit in on your journey to greater health and wellness?
First, let’s cover the basics. You may have heard the term kinesiology or muscle testing and wondered what the study of muscles or movement has to do with your health.
There are two general types of kinesiology:
1. Academic Kinesiology is the study of the body’s biomechanics (how a body moves) and exercise physiology, which is taught in traditional academic universities. This form of kinesiology studies the function of muscles to assess their physical strength and neurological functioning. But traditional kinesiologists make no connection—or application—to your body’s energy field or any other holistic components.
Physical fitness instructors, athletic trainers or sports conditioning coaches might study or have a degree in academic kinesiology to become more adept in their field.
2. Applied Kinesiology also works with muscles of the body, but instead of simply observing the function of the muscles, it uses muscle testing as a language to communicate with the body’s innate intelligence and also figure out where it isn’t communicating with itself. AK, or muscle testing, helps you tune into your body’s voice.
In other words, we use muscle testing holistically to find out:
- where energy is blocked in the body
- what is causing the blockage
- what is the best way to remove the blockage
We do not use muscle testing to diagnose or treat medical conditions.
Manual muscle testing or applied kinesiology is a form of biofeedback used by a variety of healthcare practitioners, including chiropractors, osteopaths, physical therapists, and many other holistic practitioners.
The science of manual muscle testing was first developed in the early 1900s by an orthopedic surgeon, Robert W. Lovett, M.D. of Boston, Massachusetts.
Physical Therapists Henry & Florence Kendall of Baltimore, MD furthered Dr. Lovett’s work when they released their groundbreaking book, “Muscle Testing and Function” in 1949. They worked primarily with polio victims, particularly children. Muscle testing then became a new field of Academic Kinesiology, an in-depth analysis of the exact way muscles moved joints.
Applied Kinesiology, on the other hand, was developed by George Goodheart, D.C. in the 1960s. As a chiropractor, he used muscle testing to assess patients’ structural balance and energy flow. He discovered there is a connection between each of the acupuncture meridians and specific muscles in the body—something not understood in Academic Kinesiology.
Dr. Goodheart also found that a previously strong muscle could become weak when a stressor was introduced, such as an upsetting thought, unhealthy food, environmental stressor or touching an area of the body where there is stress or dysfunction
Applied kinesiology today has several offshoots using different names, such as muscle response testing, Touch for Health by John Thie, DC, and more. All of these systems can be considered forms of Energy Kinesiology because they recognize that everything is energy.
These systems use manual muscle testing as a way to listen to the innate intelligence that runs the body to determine:
1) What’s at the source of this person’s health challenge?
2) Which holistic approach is the best way to bring this person back into balance and optimum health?
So How Can Muscle Testing or Holistic Kinesiology Help Me?
Since muscle testing is about communicating with the body, we can ask the body questions.
Your body’s intelligence innately knows what is correct and incorrect. For example, a simple exercise is asking a person to say their name and then testing the strength of the muscle—holding up their arm, for instance. If their name is “Sarah,” then the muscle should hold strong, since it is a true, or correct, statement.
But if their name is “Sarah” and they say, “My name is Jane,” then the muscle would go weak.
This is the body communicating what is not correct, or what is in error.
Scientists often estimate that our conscious mind makes up only about 10% of our mind’s overall awareness most of the time. That means that the bulk—90%—of our body’s intelligence is at the subconscious level!
If I were to ask you your name, address, or phone number, your conscious mind knows the correct answer immediately.
But if I were to ask you to pinpoint which mental or emotional stressor(s) in your life is causing pain or disruption in your body and at what age that disturbance caused a blockage—most of the time that’s a job for your subconscious mind.
Muscle testing is a tool to help us access the subconscious mind to bring that information into conscious awareness, so we can begin to heal.
Working with a Holistic Kinesiologist Can Help You:
- Correct musculoskeletal issues, such as muscle aches and spasms, joint inflammation and range of motion problems, headaches and back pain
- Improve your digestion and elimination
- Discover an optimal diet and balance body chemistry
- Improve your sleep and create greater calmness and peacefulness
- Boost your energy levels and remove fatigue
- Enhance psychological balance and clear upsetting emotions and traumas
- Accelerate learning and educational development
- Optimize sports and dance performance
- Enhance job performance and productivity
- Determine which foods and nutritional supplements enhance your health and which deplete it.
Whatever health challenges you may be dealing with—whether physical or emotional or both—muscle testing can help give you valuable insight into what’s really going on, beneath the surface, as well as answers into how to correct it.
In my clinic, every healing session uses holistic kinesiology/muscle testing to get to the root causes and to determine the best course of action.
If you’re sick of treating only symptoms and want a personalized guide to better health, book a healing session today.
