IHCAN July 2019 article by Rosemary Tarrant from Down To Earth Health, Selkirk

THE
LEARNING
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••• FEATURE
The language
of muscles
What could simple, hands-on tests reveal about
your clients? ROSEMARY TARRANT, of the
Association of Systematic Kinesiology, has
some ideas.
Muscle fibres, tendons, fascia
all have the ability to tell a
story – and it’s a fascinating
story. But if you think it’s
the whole story, then maybe
you need to think again! The language of
muscle talk through kinesiology (or muscle
testing) gives practitioners the ability to
communicate with their clients in a whole
new way.
Kinesiology itself is the study of muscle
movement. However, back in the 1960s a
chiropractor in America called Dr George
Goodheart developed a system that he
called Applied Kinesiology. This was, and
still is, through ICAK (International College
of Applied Kinesiology) reserved for medical
practitioners. However, kinesiology was also
shared with the general public initially via Dr
John Thie with Touch for Health, and then
with various other kinesiologies that were
created.
The type of kinesiology I studied in the
‘90s was Systematic Kinesiology, and I
have built a very successful practice, first in
London and then in the Scottish Borders,
when I moved in 2004.
Kinesiology detects subtle imbalances
in the body’s energy. The muscles are
linked to the meridians that in turn have
their energetic connection to associated
organs and glands. Using muscle testing
techniques, the kinesiologist can detect
whether imbalances are related to physical,
stress, nutritional imbalances, emotional or
environmental issues. Particular techniques
show how your body wants support and in
which order.
Range of techniques
A wide range of techniques are used in
kinesiology.
n Chemical: Probably one of the most
well-known is the use of muscle testing for
Food Intolerances. This
can be done using
the various muscles
linked to the Digestive
System and also
checking to see the
various states of stress
that may be involved.
Nutritional
supplements can also
be identified, and this
can be a great tool
for nutritionists or
herbalists. In addition to the great
knowledge these practitioners have,
muscle testing can identify precisely
which supplements each imbalance
requires.
For example, in my clinic I have
several makes of digestive enzyme
formulas. They are all great products,
and yet none of them are suited for
all the different clients I see. Muscle
testing is a tool to precisely choose
and confirm which of them the
client’s body is wanting and in a
“priority” order. Priority is a
technique that is taught in the
advanced stages of the Foundation
Course and is an amazing, yet simple,
technique that can revolutionise a
practitioner’s business.
n Structural: Muscle testing can
also identify what muscles are out
of balance in structural ailments.
By touching various parts of the
muscle or vertebrae, imbalance
can be detected and this makes
correcting easier and specific. A wide
application such as frozen muscles, reactive
muscles, hypertonic and hypotonic, fixations,
cranial work, and subluxations can all be
discovered.
n Emotional: Another area that can be
greatly helped is the emotional element.
Statements can be repeated and then
checked to see if they are challenging for the
body to accept. There is a broad variety of
techniques available, such as affirmations,
psychological reversal, use of acupuncture
points to balance emotions, past trauma,
stress release, goal balancing.
n Learning: Some amazing techniques
can be muscle tested and the appropriate
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ones balanced, these can make incredible
changes to people’s lives. Visual Inhibition,
auricular and auditory imbalances can be
cleared and create extraordinary changes in
peoples learning abilities.
n Environmental: Heavy Metals, toxins
etc. can also be identified using muscle
testing. As education develops in how heavy
metals affect our body, practitioners can
check their suspicions and then find out what
will help remove the toxicity from the body.
Research
Dr Anne Jensen, MSc, DC, DPhil, is a forwardthinking
healer who earned her doctorate
from the University Oxford researching
the validity of muscle testing. Through her
background in chiropractic and psychology,
her empathic ability and sense of curiosity, she
developed HeartSpeak (www. heartspeak.me),
a unique and empowering stress-reduction
tool using muscle testing.
In recent years Dr Jensen has shown
kinesiology-style manual muscle testing
(kMMT) to be significantly more accurate than
chance or intuition, using significant evidencebased
health care methods. She has devoted
many years of study at Oxford to this end.
In a poster presentation to the Australasian
Integrative Medicine Association Conference
in 2014, Dr Jensen and co-authors reported
on a series of five diagnostic test accuracy
studies in which practitioners attempted to
distinguish “truth” from “lies” made in spoken
statements using kMMT. One study used grip
strength dynamometry to compare results
with those achieved by practitioners.
They concluded: “ kMMT has repeatedly
shown significant accuracy for distinguishing
lies from truths, compared to both guessing
and chance. Furthermore, practitioners appear
to be an integral part of the kMMT dynamic
because, when removed, no significance is
achieved. The main limitation of these studies
is that they may not be generalised to other
muscle testing applications. A strength is that
these studies show that scientific method can
indeed be used to assess the usefulness of
kMMT”.
Although it does appear difficult to do
valuable research due to the role of the
practitioner, it is hoped that in the future more
research that stands up will be evaluated.
Meanwhile, our practitioners’ ongoing
experience suggests that a training in
kinesiology can be a powerful addition to an
integrated practice, especially if your practice
is nutritional therapy, functional medicine
or herbal medicine. Functional lab tests are
fantastic when used appropriately – and they
are expensive. Most of them are beyond my
clients’ resources. Once you are dialled in with
kinesiology, you may be able to elicit additional
Case study: three years of
eczema – and so much more
This client was a female in her 30s. She was
feeling very frustrated after three years of
suffering from eczema on her face, arms
and hands. She had tried everything on
offer from her GP and consultants during
that time
This is what she said:
“I had eczema on my eyelids, hands and
arm. I couldn’t go out in certain weather
conditions, be in contact with certain
fabrics/perfumes/smells. I couldn’t use
shower gels/shampoo/soap. I couldn’t go
swimming with my son. I couldn’t exercise
as the sweat irritated my skin. My skin was
irritated by everything. I found it difficult to
concentrate and sleep. I found it all really
upsetting, embarrassed by my appearance,
frustrated that it never stopped.
“Rosemary was a godsend. Not only as a practitioner but also as confidante.
She helped with the obvious, but also took time to explore the not so obvious.
Following my first meeting I noticed immediate improvements through the
subsequent elimination of certain foods and taking specific supplements that
showed using the muscle testing she did.
“I was amazed also to find that digestive issues (bloating, constipation,
tiredness) and asthma – which I had lived with for 15 years – improved, as
did my skin. While for me it’s been a long and continual process (which I was
advised about), the effects were noticeable within the first weeks and months,
so I knew that things were progressing and at last a solution had been found
and reasons explained, not just a sticking plaster offered.
“While still of a sensitive disposition, my skin reactions have calmed and I am
not ultra-sensitive. I can lead a normal life and enjoy activities that I couldn’t
before. I continue to follow the diet and feel healthier and more focused. One of
the joys in my life is that I can now go swimming with my young son without the
awful after-effects to my skin”.
What we did
It could have been assumed that this particular client had a very “chemical”
background to her issues. However, using muscle testing, it became obvious
that the skin, lung and large intestine imbalances all had a very strong
emotional aspect. She had gone through watching her father with his cancer
battle, then his death, as well as other emotional elements that had over the
years had a strong effect on her health.
n We looked at foods and identified wheat and dairy as problematic for her.
She changed her diet, removed the wheat and dairy and incorporated new
foods, eg avocado, quinoa, nuts and seeds.
n We tested skin products and found the best type for her skin.
n Releasing old emotional issues so she could move forward using muscle
testing, we uncovered which areas wanted help first. Flower Essences were
checked, identified and ingested regularly.
n Using various techniques such as Emotional Stress Release and Past Trauma
Recall, as well as other emotional balancing, helped dramatically both
with moving forward emotionally and also had a noticeable benefit on the
constipation and breathing issues that she had suffered with for more than 15
years.
n Using some of the techniques and affirmation work at home the client
adopted new emotional habits.
At least eight years have passed since this client first came to see me, and her
eczema has never returned to the level of irritation it was. Occasionally she gets
a minor irritation on one of her fingers; using muscle testing we uncover what is
required to restore balance and in a couple of weeks it as settled down again.
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information, direct from a client, about what
functional lab tests would be most helpful.
On that note, a recent ASK professional
day featured osteopath Alison Astill-Smith,
director of Metabolics, who focused on her
“Detoxifying Heavy Metals Protocol” using
kinesiology.
Training
Foundation and diploma courses approved
by the Association of Systematic Kinesiology
are run around the country.
During 2019 the foundation and diploma
manuals are being re-written. I’m delighted
to have been asked by the ASK to re-write
the foundation manual and presentation
slides for the courses starting this autumn.
Having been a kinesiologist since 2000,
I started teaching the foundation course in
2001 and also taught the practitioner course
in London for a few years before moving to
Scotland.
•••
Where’s the evidence?
Muscle testing has got something of a bad rap thanks to the ubiquitous
use of muscle tests to demonstrate and sell everything from “energybosting”
wrist bands to every make of supplement under the sun. It’s
become a parlour trick.
However, practitioners who take the time to objectively calibrate
their techniques do achieve consistently accurate results. There are
many practitioners around who first learnt kinesiology in the ‘70s and
have built successful practices on its foundation.
The research mismatch is that it has proved impossible to explain
why testing a single patient with a group of practitioners often gives
paradoxical results, and why, in a a conventional research set-up,
applied kinesiology seems to perform so badly.
The latest effort to come to a definite conclusion was the 2014 paper
“A double-blind, randomised study to assess the validity of applied
kinesiology (AK) as a diagnostic tool and as a nonlocal proximity
effect”.
This study used a “toxic vial” as a challenge test, with subjects
tested by practitioners using muscle testing and by a grip-strength
meter. Sometimes the toxin was identified, sometimes it wasn’t; the
dynamometer results were almost the same as chance; the research
group concluded that applied kinesiology had not proved itself to be a
reliable diagnostic tool.
They threw into their summary a 1990 review of the literature as
well as a 2008 survey and six non-clinical studies, while affirming that
“research published by the applied kinesiology field itself is not to be
relied upon”.
The 2008 survey of AK judged it according to “standard evaluation
criteria [quality assessment tool for studies of diagnostic accuracy
included in systematic reviews (QUADAS), Standards for Reporting
of Diagnostic Studies (STARD), JADAD, and Consolidated Standards
of Reporting Trials (CONSORT)], for research methodology”. Well,
that sounds damning. However, when these standards are applied to
research assessing life-critical medical tests such as those for HIV and TB,
conventional medical testing does not seem to come out much better.
A classic example was reported in a McGill University paper
published in PLoS One: “Quality and reporting of diagnostic accuracy
studies in TB, HIV and malaria: evaluation using QUADAS and STARD
standards”. The authors found that only 90 (38%) of 238 articles
met inclusion criteria for the review and “All studies had design
deficiencies”. The full panoply of quality indicators – as applied to
kinesiology – were met in less than 25% of the studies. “Recently
published diagnostic accuracy studies on commercial tests for TB,
malaria and HIV have moderate to low quality and are poorly reported”,
they concluded.
It is also unhelpful, not to say unscientific, to dismiss published,
peer-reviewed evidence of kinesiology’s effectiveness. This would
exclude, then, the exhaustive 2007 review by International College
of Applied Kinesiology gurus Dr Scott Cuthbert, DC, and Dr George
Goodheart, DC: “On the reliability and validity of manual muscle
testing: a literature review”, a paper that highlights the incredible
difficulties inherent in applying RCT-style testing to a system of
assessment that contains a degree of “art” and manual dexterity.
Their paper addresses manual muscle testing (MMT) and its
standalone derivative AK – reporting that “AK has therefore been
used by a proportion of the chiropractic profession for over 42 years”
(by 2007), and making the point that the “patient education program
Touch for Health (T4H) designed by an International College of Applied
Kinesiology (ICAK) diplomate, John Thie..T4H was one of the first
public self-help programs and there are claims that it is the fastest
growing ‘body work’ program in the world, used by over ten million
people”.
Cuthbert and Goodheart report a slew of studies showing: “The
levels of agreement attained, based upon +/- one grade were high,
ranging from 82% to 97% agreement for interexaminer reliability and
from 96% to 98% for test-retest reliability”.
“Determining the ideal operational definition of an MMT can be
difficult given the large number of test variations that exist. All of the
tests described by Kendall, Wadsworth, Goodheart, Walther and others
involve multiple joint movements and handling techniques. This results
in a large number of variables that are difficult to control”, they say.
Among these is the previously unappreciated role of the nervous
system. “When performed by an examiner’s hands MMT may not be
just testing for actual muscle strength; rather it may also test for the
nervous system’s ability to adapt the muscle to the changing pressure
of the examiner’s test. A nervous system functioning optimally will
immediately attempt to adapt a muscle’s activity to meet the demands
of the test. There appears to be a delay in the recruitment of muscle
motor units when the nervous system is functioning inadequately [7
references given]. This delay varies with the severity of the nervous
system’s impairment, and influences the amount of weakness shown
during the MMT”.
They also quote from a paper by Kendall et al: “As tools, our hands
are the most sensitive, fine-tuned instruments available. One hand of
the examiner positions and stabilises the part adjacent to the tested
part. The other hand determines the pain-free range of motion and
guides the tested part into precise test position, giving the appropriate
amount of pressure to determine the strength. All the while this
instrument we call the hand is hooked up to the most marvellous
computer ever created. It is the examiner’s very own personal computer
and it can store valuable and useful information of the basis of which
judgments about evaluation and treatment can be made. Such
information contains objective data that is obtained without sacrificing
the art and science of manual muscle testing to the demand for
objectivity”.
SIMON MARTIN
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THE
LEARNING
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••• FEATURE
I now run foundation courses in
Edinburgh and the Scottish Borders, and
may add further locations in the future.
The foundation is available as a mid-week
course on Wednesdays, weekends and as a
residential intensive in Spring next year.
The residential intensive is very exciting
as it will be a 14 consecutive day course and
will truly be an immersion in kinesiology.
It’s a great way to build confidence in
muscle testing, as there is no time to build
bad habits in between modules – and it
means that questions can be answered as
they arise. I am also ensuring that it has
a feel of a retreat, with yoga, meditation
and other beneficial activities available in
the gentle supportive hills of the Scottish
Borders.
IHCAN2019
summit
ASK at the Summit
Connect with Rosemary and ASK at the
IHCAN Summit: delegates can attend a
special Practitioner Introduction
Weekend: contact Julie for details:
admin@systematic-kinesiology.co.uk.
About the author
ROSEMARY TARRANT, Dip ASK, ITEC AP&M, HbT, ACMT, Cert Nut,
heads Down To Earth Health and Health School and is a trustee for the
Association of Systematic Kinesiology. Info: learn@health-school.co.uk,
www.health-school.co.uk and www.downtoearthhealth.co.uk.
Nutrition
during
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During the perimenopause and
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Christine Bailey
n A deeper understanding of hormone
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n A greater awareness of the laboratory
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• Institute for Optimum Nutrition, Ambassador
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•••
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