Muscle Testing the Road Less Traveled

Muscle facilitation and inhibition is the means by which a muscle is functioning normally or abnormally. There are many different functions you can observe with muscles, sometimes there is hyper-facilitation, which means that the muscle is overly strong, but other times your muscle may be preforming sub-optimally. Whether your muscle is displaying as weak or strong, the muscle strength can be observed through muscle testing.  When we test muscles, we grade them on a scale of 1-5 for muscle activation/activity, 5 is considered normal. Anything below a five is abnormal. There are basically three different scenarios when you are testing a muscle. The first, the muscle is extremely strong, to an abnormal level. Second, the muscle is normal, and third the muscle is abnormally weak. According to the teachings of Applied Kinesiology, there are actually a number of different scenarios that can contribute to the overall function of a muscle. (Applied Kinesiology -AK is a technique within the field of chiropractic, developed by George Goodheart, that uses a number of different techniques in stimulating muscles to get them to fire normally. Some of these techniques were developed my osteopaths, and some by Dr. Goodheart himself, and then all were compiled into a book for the practitioner, titled Applied Kinesiology Synopsis.) A lot of what I’ll be talking about today comes from this work.

I realize that some of the topics that I am going to highlight are controversial and have not been proven in the field of science to my knowledge, at least thus far. Regardless, my clinical observation and personal experience backs up these claims. I have seen the effects on my own body through the techniques and methods that will be discussed. In addition to my own experience, there are hundreds of other practitioners that have used these controversial techniques and methods, with astounding results.

For all bodies of science, the preliminary evidence, although not as highly weighted as systematic reviews, is the case report. I consider my own anecdotal experience as my working case report. Not only do I consider my own case, but also the many cases I have seen that have benefited from these techniques.

In AK we say that there are five major factors that keep a muscle from firing properly, there is sixth factor that was later added and is defined as nutrition. One of the major factors that contribute to the facilitation of the muscle is the nerve connection to that muscle. If the nerve connection gets interrupted for any reason, then we can see that by the way the muscle fires/contracts. As an Applied Kinesiologist, what I am looking for is a complete lock of a muscle. A lot of people have a misconception that the person testing the muscle strength is overpowering you, but once a person has been trained properly the ability to replicate the test increases drastically, and the inter-rater reliability is quite high. I remember the way I perceived muscle testing when I first witnessed its practice, I thought it was a total sham! My thought was, the variability in force is so broad spectrum that it would be impossible to replicate the same amount of force to get a reliable scientific observation. If our observation was measured by force alone, this would be true. But the force alone is not the primary metric, what is actually being measured is a muscles ability to lock, and hold that position of lock. All muscles, no matter how big or small, have the ability to lock in position. If they are not locking, we know something is wrong.  Or, if we experience a phenomenon termed clonus (excessive firing of a muscle), then we know that there is something wrong with the nervous system. Typically, this would be an upper motor neuron lesion causing this hyper facilitation pattern. An upper motor neuron just means that it is part of the central nervous system. (In neurology there is the central nervous system and the peripheral system. The central nervous system is the spinal cord, attached to the brain, once you leave that central connection, it becomes the peripheral.)

The first factor discussed focuses on the connection between the central nervous system, all the way to the muscle. In a way you can compare the muscle tester to an electrician who is testing the circuits on a panel. As a practitioner I am going through the different circuits to see if they are working properly. Once I discover an insufficient connection, I then proceed with another protocol to determine why it isn’t working properly. Is the actual bone position contributing to the inhibition of the connection? While going through Chiropractic school they taught us that the amount of pressure it takes to alter the function of a nerve is the same amount of pressure that a dime exerts on the body when placed in your palm. Although this particular claim (to my knowledge) is unvalidated, any physical pressure on nerves can affect the integrity of the electrical signal being sent to muscles.

Every single muscle in your your body is innervated by nerves that eventually trace back to the spine. They are called spinal nerves and are labeled with the names of the vertebrae from which they stem, for example, out of C1 (the first bone in the spine/ the atlas) has a corresponding nerve that stems out from the spinal chord above the atlas and runs to various structures. That first spinal nerve is in charge of sending and receiving signals to the muscles that are involved in nodding your head, swallowing, and raising your shoulders. If we were to cut that nerve, you would lose the function of all of those muscles. Through this example we can see that the spine and the nerves running through it have a very important connection to all the muscles in our body, and can be greatly impacted by a misalignment of the spine, be it congenital (from birth) or otherwise. With proper chiropractic care you can help restore proper function to dysfunctional muscles.

The traditional understanding of why chiropractic works is the idea that there is a misalignment in the spine that needs to be realigned in order to function properly. This is just one of the many reasons why a muscle will not function properly. As an AK practitioner, I am able to find the misalignment that needs to be corrected through muscle testing, I look at how your muscle responds various tests. I am looking for the root cause of muscle weakness. Through this precise method of assessing and testing the body, an Applied Kinesiologist is more likely to get to the root of your problem.