Science-Based Evidence for Muscle Testing as a Diagnostic Tool
Scientific Basis for Muscle Testing and Applied Kinesiology
Muscle Testing Validity - Fact or Fiction?
The validity of muscle testing has been called into question. According to the current entry in wikipedia:
"AK is a practice within the realm of alternative medicine and is different from 'kinesiology,' which is the scientific study of human movement. AK has been criticized on theoretical and empirical grounds, and characterized as pseudoscience.
With only anecdotal accounts providing positive evidence for the efficacy of the practice, a review of peer-reviewed studies concluded that the "evidence to date does not support the use of [AK] for the diagnosis of organic disease or pre/subclinical conditions."
The above statement is from an article published in Chiropractic & Osteopathy, "Disentangling Manual Muscle Testing and Applied Kinesiology: Critique and Reinterpretation of a Literature Review", and references another article - "On the Reliability and Validity of Manual Muscle Testing: a Literature Review", in the same journal as its starting point for discourse. Anyone undecided about the validity of muscle testing who is truly interested in making and informed decision should read both articles. I will provide links at the end of this article to that and to other material that will hopefully help you make the correct decision for you.
A Brief History of Muscle Testing
Muscle testing originated with Dr. George Goodheart, a chiropractor, who developed the technique. Muscle testing was introduced on a broad basis to the rest of the therapeutic world in 1964 in the textbook, Muscles: Testing and Function, written by Florence Petersen Kendall.
To the lay person or the clinician who doubts the validity of muscle testing, I recommend reading the book, or, at the least, reviewing the studies that are cited within it. There are 108 citations to review, and the suggested reading list covers over 200 additional studies, articles, and texts, much of which is scientific in nature.
Muscle testing is also called applied kinesiology. The concept is built upon the fact that living things have electrical energy within and without them. A perfect example that most people can identify with and easily recognize is the central nervous system, comprised of the brain, spinal cord and network of nerves. All the messages sent from the brain to all parts of the body are electrical in nature.
This energy essentially forms a field that can be evaluated for integrity at any one of several points. These points can be balanced, or, to put it another way, have the integrity of their electrical energy restored, through several means. Nutritional intervention, manual manipulation, and even allopathic medicine may be required to balance a given point.
Goodheart's initial work in muscle testing was built upon by Dr. John Diamond in the books Behavioral Kinesiology, and Your Body Doesn't Lie. The first title was published by Harper and Row in NY in 1979; the second, by Warner Books, also in '79. Dr. Diamond was the first person to actually quantify muscle strength responses through the use f a dynamometer in controlled experiments in 1976. While I do not personally own the aforementioned titles, they are available for purchase at amazon.com to those parties interested in further study.
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