Kinesiology is the study of muscles. To be more exact, it is the study of motion of the human body. What happens when we move? It is easy isn't it? You decide you want to move and you do it. RIGHT? Maybe not as easy as we think! Let's think about it for a moment. Without going into great detail! To move we have to contract a muscle. When we contract a muscle to move a bone, it has to be in a location around a joint. So we make the decision to move, the brain sends out the signal through the nervous system to the spindle cells of the muscles which in turn contracts one set of muscles. While this is happening the brain also sends a signal to the opposing muscle (since all muscles have opposing muscles) to release. It is impossible to contract both of the opposing muscles at the same time. We will not going to go into the whole story behind how this fantastic system works. But we will need to know a little about how this system works to understand how we will use these same muscles to communicate with our body. This is called Applied Kinesiology (AK).
We can decide about a specific muscle, watch what happens when this muscle contracts. For instance; lets think about the anterior deltoid muscle. This muscle lifts the arm forward when it contracts. We will use this one at first because it is easy muscle to work with and it is easy for others to observe while we use this for our test.
Lets contract this muscle (Anterior deltoid) so the arm is approximately 30 degrees forward. To test his muscle for locking we will put light pressure down as to return the arm back to the side. The person will not let us do this movement! Now remember it is not a heavy pressure. It is to feel the locking of this muscle only! If it locks, we will show how to shut this action off. The test is to see if it is working as it should. Once we decide, we will use this muscle to communicate with the body.
The person we will use will not say anything out loud. An easy test would be to ask the person: Give me a yes! Then give me a no! After each question we will do the test movement of GENTLY pressing the arm down! It should lock on the yes and not with the no! How can we use this information to find out specifics?
Muscle Testing originated in Applied Kinesiology (AK) as a way to determine weather a given muscle group functioned normally. To verify that normal state, AK researchers positioned a muscle in its contracted state and applied pressure to move the muscle toward its extended state. If the muscle "held strong" it functioned normally. If it "went weak" when tested, this indicator change meant the muscle was under energy. NOW, to re-balance such under energy, AK uses acupressure massage, manipulation of muscle proprioceptors, and other techniques. AK has received general and enthusiastic acceptance within the field of Wholistic Health and is achieving more and more recognition with in the medical establishment. At Three and One Concepts, they have refined the AK muscle testing even more.
Three in One Concepts is a company that is based in Burbank, CA. This company uses AK in many different ways. One of them is called ONE BRAIN, which uses the muscle testing process to correct Dyslexia. It takes you through a series of tests to find out specific information relating to a stressor that happened at a time of learning!
If you are new to the concepts of muscle-testing as a means of receiving feedback from the body. The technique may seem unusual to say the least. Yet, at Three in One Concepts they have found for over 20 years now that it has been very accurate in all kinds of test conditions.
Touch for Health is another modality that uses Applied Kinesiology for getting rid of stressors of the body.
In the early 1960's George Goodhart, DC came up with a new idea for working with muscles. People talked about muscles being tight, or in spasm, causing pain and pulling the spine out of line. He concluded that it wasn't really muscle spasm causing the trouble, but that weak muscles on one side of the body can cause normal opposing to become or seem tight.
When we find a tight or knotted muscle, our first inclination is to work directly on the muscle itself to relax it. There may be a reason why it is tense, and the tension, even if you temporarily release it, will return.
Think for a moment if you will that a door held in place with two springs, so it can swing in both directions. As long as the tension stays equal on both sides of the door is in the middle or in balance. If by chance one of the springs weaken, the opposing spring (muscle) seems to be stronger and it pulls the door in that direction. You will have to replace the weak spring or make it stronger.
So it is with the muscles of the human body. For every motion a muscle makes, there is a corresponding muscle which opposes this motion. If the tight muscle flexes the arm as an example, look for a weakness in a muscle which extends or straightens. If a tight muscle pulls a limb away from the body, look for that muscle that pulls it in to be weak. In a case like that instead of working on the muscle that seems tight, use the TFH techniques to strengthen the weak one. Some of the muscles are related to specific organ systems because they share a lymph vessel or an acupressure meridian, for an example. So when we have improved the muscle by restoring the energy flow of these systems, this also gives relief to the organ that sharing that system.
There is so much more that we use Applied Kinesiology for. So if you are interested in learning more about any of the techniques I have talked about or of another. Look up someone in your area and experience some of the work they do! You will be pleased that you did!
Tom King has been a Hatha Yoga Instructor since 1968 and one of the founding members of the Yoga Association of Greater Detroit (YAGD). He has owned and operated two of the first state licensed schools of massage therapy and holistic health in Michigan.
Tom King has been a Hatha Yoga Instructor since 1968 and one of the founding members of the Yoga Association of Greater Detroit (YAGD). He has owned and operated two of the first state licensed schools of massage therapy and holistic health in Michigan.
