Muscle Testing
Basics

Muscle Testing is simple to learn. It involves testing the arm, or another body part, for strength or weakness. Manual muscle testing techniques come from the field of Kinesiology. Kinesiology studies muscles and their movements, mostly in relation to sports. However, chiropractors have evolved Kinesiology into other branches: Applied, Clinical, and Behavioral Kinesiology. Click here for a brief history of Kinesiology.

While muscle response testing is not necessary for doing EFT, Gary Craig uses it in the EFT DVD's. With it, he confirms information he intuitively picks up. He also uses it to determine which points need tapping, making the short-cut EFT version even shorter. In addition, he uses it to check for polarity reversal.

I use muscle testing primarily for testing substance sensitivities (energetic reactions), hidden traumas, polarity reversal, and in a big way, to help keep "me" out of the way when doing EFT with clients. Others use it differently.

To learn how to do muscle testing on someone, get a partner. Stand facing one another. Your partner raises their arm, straight out, directly in front of them. The arm can also be held to the side. The arm should be horizontal, at shoulder height. The person testing places one hand, or two fingers, above the wrist of the outstretched arm. The other hand of the tester can rest on the shoulder of the subject, or not. Caution: Do not use an arm/shoulder that has been or is injured in any way. The arms used need to be able to to resist or exert downward force. When your partner is ready, say "resist" and push down on their arm with your hand or two fingers. You need to let them resist (tighten their arm) before you push down.

Muscle testing it is not a competition of physical strength, do not overpower the person you are testing. The idea is for you to test the relative strength of your partner's arm. Since different people vary in arm strength, you will need to gauge the amount of force to use when pushing down, each time you test someone new. You are trying to calibrate or judge, the individual's relative arm strength. You need to do this so you can easily tell the difference between a strong or weak response. If your partner's arm is extremely strong, have them hold it at an angle, so it is lower and not horizontal. This will give you more leverage.

To do muscle testing on a child or someone with a very weak arm, use only one finger and lower yourself to their level. I prefer to use surrogate muscle testing in these cases. Also, remember when pushing down to only exert enough force to overcome the arm's resistance. Stop pushing when you feel the arm buckle. Very little force will be needed when your partner tests "weak" on something.

Now you are ready to test different items. Select something you want to test and have your partner hold it one hand and raise the other for testing. Have them hold the item near their chest, if possible. If the item is too big, they can just focus on it with their mind. Once your partner is holding or focusing on the item, say, "resist", and push down on their arm. If the arm stays strong they have a "positive" response. If the arm goes "weak", then it is a "negative" response.

Anyone can do muscle testing this way. Try testing a picture, an emotion, a place, a food, a color, a movie, a song, even a thought. A weak response to something, means that the body is reacting negatively to the stimulus being tested. Rejection or non-acceptance of the stimulus is present. Muscle response testing can also find areas of energy weakness in the body. By touching points on the body associated with different organs or energy meridians, and muscle testing with the other arm, you can find areas of energy weakness in your body or acupuncture meridians,

These are the beginning basics of muscle testing. So play with the technique. For more fun, use muscle testing as an indicator to get "yes" and "no" answers to specific questions. Using muscle testing this way gets more difficult because the accuracy of the response depends on how specific the question is. If you ask, "Is the sky blue?". There is ambiguity because sometimes the sky is cloudy and not blue. For "yes" or "no" questions, the strong or weak response is just a binary form of comunication, similar to how computers run with binary, 01001 code. The information being accessed through muscle testing is what is stored in the programs or belief systems in our subconscious mind. It is accessing "truth" from the perspective of your unconscious programs. Please note that different healing techniques may take a strong muscle to mean "no" and the weak muscle to mean "yes". This is fine as long as the tester is clear on what means what. The "yes" or "no" response is just a signal from the body and we can consciously switch the meaning by being clear with ourselves and the person being testing on what means what. To learn how to self muscle test yourself see Self Muscle Testing.

Accuracy

Einstein and Quantum Physics confirm that everything is energy. Each item and each one of us has a unique energy signature. Maybe we think our body recognizes things through our senses? Well, try testing a few items, small enough to put in a glass jar, and test them on someone with their eyes closed. Then test them with their eyes open. Or test your partner on pictures before and after you put them in envelopes, and mix them up so it is not know which is where. Just make sure the items are held close to the chest. The personal responses will be the same for each item tested whether the eyes are open or closed. This is because our body's energy is responding energetically to the energy signature, or vibration, of each item tested.

The "weak" or "strong" muscle testing response reflects energetic information we hold about/or that is associated to the item tested. For some items, our responses will be very unique. For example, we would expect that since the nutritional value of organic peanuts is recognized worldwide, everyone tested for them, would test strong. While the body recognizes the nutritional value, just presenting the peanuts to the body, may still produce a "weak" response. This is because each item's energy signature gets run through our database of past learning, or "writing on our walls", as Gary Craig calls it. It is similar to running fingerprints found on a crime scene through a criminal database for matching. If information is found associating the item with an unpleasant experience or emotion, that is unresolved, the body's energy system will repel the stimulus, as in "I need to move away from this, this is a stressor." and give us a weak indicator muscle response.

On the other hand, some items may actually strengthen our energy systems, and help correct present energy imbalances. In this case, the vibration, or energy signal of the item, will amplify the vibration needed to restore energy balance in our body. You can think of the item as vibrating like a tuning fork, that corrects and tunes the frequency of the internal organ, emotion, or thought that went off balance.

To feel the subtle energy that I am describing, try this. Rub the palm of your hands together vigorously for about 10 seconds. Stop and separate your palms, moving them away from each other, about 1/2 meter (2 feet). Now, start bringing the palms of your hands back together very slowly. Keep your fingers relaxed. Pay attention to what you are sensing in the area between the closing palms. There is a point, a few inches before they touch, where you can feel the palms resist each other and almost push each other back. You are feeling your energy field. You may need to move away from electrical equipment to get better results (at least 2 m/yrd).

Now try this. Safely stand up and close your eyes. Get a sense of how steady and balanced your body is. Now open your eyes and find something that you can hold in your hand. Close your eyes again while you hold the item next to your chest and see what happens to the steadiness and balance of your body. Try it with different items, or just imagine your favorite food, the last time your were angry, or the last time you were enjoying yourself.

What happened to your balance? Try doing this exercise away from your computer and then next to your computer. Any difference? Retest yourself with the same items to double check your response. Most people will experience some type of pull or push that moves the body off balance. The push or pull is the equivalent of a "weak" or "strong" arm response. Here you can really feel the attraction or repulsion to the item you are holding or thinking of.

So, at the smallest level we are energy, reacting and responding energetically. Information comes in to us for processing and is then released. Very similar to our breathing. Everything has an energetic effect on us and we have an energetic effect on everything. When we do muscle testing with a partner, it is like connecting two electrical circuits to each other. Where your energy ends and where your partner's begins is not easy to determine, once you make contact. You are now one electrical circuit. This is important to recognize to ensure accuracy in the results.

When your partner's arm gives a weak response, you must be sure, it is NOT your response. What I mean is: once you are one circuit, the response could be coming from either one of you. The intention on who is being tested needs to be very clear in the minds of both people. You can also have the person being tested hold their head straight while looking down and you can test the arm out to the side, to help the mind stay open to receiving the answer in an unbiased way. Doing the test more than once is another good way to assure accuracy. If you know how to self muscle test, test the item on yourself first to make sure you are "strong". This way, if your partner gets a "weak" response, you will know it's accurate. If you are "weak" on the item, you will need to clear yourself of this response, before you can test this item with accuracy on others.

The more clearing work the person doing the testing has done on themselves, the better they can serve as a "clear channel" for others, and the more reliable the results.

Return Home from Muscle Testing
Go to History of Kinesiology
Go to Acupuncture Meridians
Go to Surrogate EFT
Go to EFT Learning
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