Diving straight into it – what is it?
Some people say that muscle testing is a way to ask your body’s ‘subconscious mind’ for answers. But this doesn’t fully explain what muscle testing actually does.
For a clearer explanation, it’s a non-invasive technique that tests the body’s autonomic (involuntary) nervous system and its responses to certain substances, hence it’s sometimes referred to as Autonomic Response Testing (ART). It does this by measuring muscle movements and can sometimes also be called Applied Kinesiology.
Muscle testing is when art* meets science.
–– Mark Ottobre
*ART = can also stand for Applied Response Testing 😉
But how does it actually work?
Everything, living or not, has an electromagnetic field. If you’ve heard of Newton’s 3rd Law, then you must be familiar with the action-reaction principle, which states that ‘every action always has an opposed an equal reaction’.
Therefore, by placing something in close vicinity to you (or in the case of muscle testing, placing a herb directly into your hands), the electromagnetic fields of both your body and the herb will react to one another, causing a slight but noticeable change to your body’s responses.
Which can show up in the weirdest places. A dietary intolerance can be linked to an immune deficiency, or an allergic reaction to elevated stress. So while it’s useful to organise the body into systems – digestive, nervous, endocrine, respiratory… it’s not as clear-cut as that.
With muscle testing, the body is viewed as a whole, because everything is ultimately interrelated.
Even your emotions! Probably the most surprising thing about muscle testing is the emotional component. You can’t test someone you hate, or love, or basically have any other feeling for.
Since muscle testing relies on feedback from your autonomic nervous system…
Thoughts and feelings (which affect your central nervous system) have as much effect as physical allergens do to your body.
As with any other sensitive medical test, it’s important to know how to interpret the body’s signals.
The common ‘strong is good, weak is bad’ principle applied in most muscle testing is just brushing the surface.
Weak signals are just as important as strong ones in determining the foods and supplements that are (or aren’t) compatible with a person’s unique biochemistry. By ignoring the weak signals, you’re basically ignoring half of the body’s responses, and getting half of the answers from muscle testing.
However, muscle testing is not used to ‘diagnose’ or ‘treat’ anything.
Think of your basic nutrition and supplementation programming as the on-off light switch, and muscle testing as the fine tune knob that dims/brightens the lights. With the addition of muscle testing, you will be able to fine tune your nutrition and support the body holistically to get better results – faster!
So if you’re interested in muscle testing, make sure you’re consulting someone who has had the experience (and results!). If they rely on it as their ONLY method of testing, or if their explanation as to why you should be taking a certain supplement is ‘because your body tested strong for it’ then I would suggest you to run.
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- Muscle Testing
- Why should I do the Applied Muscle Testing Course at Enterprise Fitness?
- Applied Muscle Testing Course Review : With Bob Guiel
- Advanced Detoxification and Muscle Testing with Bob Guiel
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