How To Muscle Test

I've mentioned muscle testing in posts before, and I promised to write more information about it. So for those who are interested, I'll give some basic instructions. I may write another post later about why I believe this is such a valuable tool, but for now let's look at how to use it.

Basically muscle testing is a way to use the muscles to glean information about the body. Your brain knows everything that happens in your body, with all that information stored on the non-conscious level. Muscle testing helps you access specific information you need to know on the conscious level. By applying pressure to a specific muscle, the response of that muscle will be either "weak" or "strong," indicating what is good or true for the body.

That's probably not the best explanation of what muscle testing is or how it works, but hopefully it'll make more sense as I continue.

There are several different ways to muscle test. You can use an arm test (holding your arm straight out and applying slight pressure to test). There are also different finger tests you can use. The simplest method we've found is to use a standing test and to ask very specific yes/no questions. 

Standing Test: 

Stand up straight. Ask a yes/no question. In response, your body will either lean forward or backward. Leaning forward is a "yes" answer. Leaning backward is a "no" answer. 

A good way to start to practice using the standing test is to simply state, "My name is ___" and insert your name. Your body should lean forward, as a "yes" answer. Then say, "My name is Bob" (or any name besides yours), and your body should lean backward, a "no" answer. 

With the standing test, you should get a pretty strong pull forward or backward, but even if it's just slightly leaning one way or the other, that's probably still a good test.

Since muscle testing does require some energy, I've found that I can usually only test myself on my really good days. Most of the time my mom is my "surrogate" tester. She touches my arm (needs to be skin-to-skin contact) then she asks the questions for me and does the standing test. 

Example: She might say, "Is Joanna allergic to this apple?" (When testing for food allergies it helps if you can put a sample of the food in a glass jar and hold it in your hand while testing.) Then if she leans backward, we know it's a "no" answer, I'm not allergic to the item. 

Most people are able to test themselves, with a little practice. If you aren't able to, maybe you can ask someone to help by doing the surrogate testing for you.

When doing the testing, keep your brain clear of other thoughts. If you're thinking about something else or worrying about the test, it usually won't work. Sometimes when we we test something and get an answer that I'm pretty sure is wrong, I look at mom and she laughs and says, "Sorry I was thinking about something else." So just try to stay relaxed and only thinking about what you're testing. 

At first you might find the muscle testing awkward or unclear, but as you practice a little, you'll get the hang of it. Once you get a clear response doing a test (leaning forward or backward), then you know what it feels like and it gets easier. 

A lot of doctors use the arm test, where you hold out your arm and have someone gently push on it to get a "weak" or "strong" response. Personally, I find this method harder to do and less clear in its results. Also your arm can get tired quickly. 

Lately we've been using a finger test sometimes, which is more convenient since you can't always stop what you're doing and stand up to test yourself. Here's a short video that explains this simple finger test. 

Some other tips to remember about muscle testing - make sure you're hydrated when testing, or results may be inaccurate. Don't have a cell phone in your pocket, as that can interfere with the testing. Don't stand right next to appliances, computers, or other electronic devices when testing. 

Once you get the hang of how to test yourself, you can test various things - such as allergies, use of supplements, problem areas in the body, toxicity, parasites, etc. Basically anything that the brain knows, you can do a muscle test for. Just make sure you're using very specific yes/no questions, otherwise the body may not respond with an accurate test. (Learning what kinds of questions to use also takes some practice. I'll try to share more on that next week.) 

Muscle testing does take some practice and some trial and error, but we've found it to be an extremely valuable tool. Next week I'll share some specifics on how to use it for allergies, supplements, etc. 

Any questions?