Muscle Testing

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Muscle Testing

Muscle testing, also called kinesiology, applied kinesiology, applied psycho neurobiology or energy testing is an ancient healing tool that has been around for centuries. Muscle testing is biofeedback without all the gadgets. It can be used anywhere to test anything. In the natural healing world, we use muscle testing to test for allergies and all kinds of things.

We can test to find out which foods you are allergic to, or find which foods can cause side effects such as weight gain, gas/bloating/ hiccups/ tiredness, etc. We can also use muscle testing for finding deficiencies or excesses of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, oils, fatty acids and amino acids.

Muscle testing using the finger method

Dr. Moffat muscle tests products for a client consult

Muscle testing is also used to test the core cause of disease, which options or treatment modalities are best to heal the challenges, which drugs or supplements are best for you, and even which crystals to use (if you are into that kind of thing) and where they need to be placed. We use muscle testing to check and balance supplements, vitamins, and flower essences, and to determine which spiritual lessons you are both teaching and learning from the people around you.

I personally use muscle testing to prioritize all my tasks when I get too excited or overwhelmed and can’t think straight. You can use muscle testing to talk to your pets and even to talk to friends and relatives who have passed over (if you believe in that kind of thing). Once I had a problem with my rototiller not starting, so I asked for help from an available mechanic who specialized in small engines who had passed that was willing to help me. Through muscle testing, we figured out how to adjust the carburetor so that it would start and keep going so I could get my job done.

The uses of muscle testing are astounding and never ending. It is an awesome and powerful tool. My personal favorite of all the techniques I’ve learned. I believe learning how to muscle test can help us access our higher guidance and allow us to listen to our higher self through the guidance of Spirit.

How muscle testing works: 

The world runs on vibration. Everything we see, taste, touch, smell, and hear is made up of vibration. These vibrations either make our body strong by responding positively to them which in turn makes our bodies, muscles, and ultimately our immune system strong–or they weaken it. The goal is to find those things, foods, people, and situations that strengthen your body and therefore strengthen your immune system. You also want to stay away from or limit exposure to those things that weaken your body.

The body is an integral interacting whole. Muscles, organs, and glands are interconnected via energy circuits of nerves, lymphatics, energy meridians, and blood vessels. These circuits “ turn off” when imbalanced or blocked by illness, injury, or toxin overload. By balancing the body’s energy, the systems are able to heal returning us to a state of health. Muscle testing is one method that allows us to do this.

An indicator muscle (any old muscle that is available for use) is used to test the answer to our “yes” and “no” questions when muscle testing. Your practitioner may use the arm muscles, leg muscles, their fingers (like I do) and even muscles you can’t see such as the toes or tongue muscles to test. A negative answer to a question gives a sagging, clicking, or spongy feeling to the indicator muscle by short-circuiting or overloading the system. This makes it impossible for the indicator muscle to maintain its strength or hold position when pressure is applied.

Check out Dr. Brad Nelson’s site (link below). He does seminars that teach muscle testing. He also does a technique called The Body Code and Emotion Code which centers on muscle testing.  One of his specialties is clearing the emotions having to do with weight issues.

I believe that the body knows why it is sick and how it got that way.  By asking the correct questions we are able to find the core cause of illness. Through muscle testing we can determine if the core cause of our weight issue was something we ate, drank, inhaled, or were in contact with and even which techniques can be utilized to best overcome the challenge.

Muscle testing is a tool. Some people just have a feeling what will work for them, some people listen to their intuition, some look for signs, some gather evidence to make decisions, and others just listen to their gut instinct. What I like about muscle testing is that I can ask the best healers to be present (including asking for God’s help) and ask a “yes” or “no” question to get an immediate answer.

How to muscle test Dr. Moffat’s way:

Hold the fingers of your right hand tip to tip, index finger against thumb and looped through the index figure/thumb of your left hand like a chain link. Try not to make contact with too much of the pad of the finger. The more contact, the harder it will be to pull them apart. This is not a strength test. The more sensitive you get, the less strength you will have to exert to have your fingers separate for a “no” answer.

The idea is to pull against your fingers just hard enough to test the spring of the muscle but not so hard that the muscle becomes fatigued. Sometimes you will feel a “locking” or “ratcheting” feeling, or little double click in the muscle, especially when using the arm muscles. Sometimes if you are not concentrating, or going you are going too fast, your fingers will slide but not pull apart. This is confusing because you can’t tell if you got a “yes” or “no” answer. When this happens to try it again and concentrate.

With correct pressure, a set of muscles can be used repeatedly for several hundred tests without tiring for muscle testing.

Use the same amount pressure to pull your fingers apart when asking “yes” and “no” questions. If your fingers are not coming apart when you test a definite “no” or negative question, you are holding your fingers too tight. Or you may have too much finger pad contact, or maybe you are not electric enough to test yourself (see below).

Practice: Let your “yes” be “yes” and your “no” be “no”. Simply ask your body to let you feel a positive test response, then ask it to give you a negative response. Get some practice in by asking true and untrue questions that you absolutely know the answers to. For example say and test phrases like, “That door is white (looking at a white door)”, “My name is _____ (insert your name here, then try someone else’s name to feel a weak test), “I love (name your favorite food and then repeat with your least favorite food)”, “I am ___ years old”, etc.

Too hard? Focus, clear your head, and let your intention be pure. Open your heart to truth. Be the facilitator and messenger. Leave your ego out of this. Don’t try to control the answers.

Your attitude and emotions can also affect the testing. Be pure of mind. Emanate unconditional love and ask for divine guidance. Personally I feel if I misuse my abilities, they will be taken away from me. I get so much joy from seeing miracles happen in my practice, I just would never want to give that ability up. I both honor and respect my gift.

Trust the process. Be open to the possibility that others may be wrong in their own diagnosis and answers. Many times I have been surprised by what came up as the core cause. 

Case Study using muscle testing:

A 12 week-old border collie puppy, and his owner came to see me.  The owner had purchased the puppy at 6 weeks of age in California. After only 10 days, the puppy started having severe seizures. The owner came prepared with copies of the blood work, X-rays, and notes from a full exam given by a local university.

All usual causes were ruled out, but the university wanted her to have a CT scan done to rule out more core causes. No history of seizures was found in the bloodlines.

We muscle tested the puppy had been exposed to heavy metals in its environment at two weeks of age. The owner called the breeder to ask her about the environment. They knew of no exposure. Nonetheless, we treated the dog with a liver glandular and added some carob to the food for a month to take the heavy metals out of the system.

I called a month later very concerned that she had not called to check in and had not made a recheck appointment. She told me the recheck was unnecessary–the dog was healed. The seizures had stopped the day after putting the puppy on the muscle tested products, and she had followed through and used up what I had given her.

Having the lab tests and other diagnostic tools was nice, but that is not what saved this animal’s life. Sometimes you have to trust your gut instincts and have a little faith in guidance from a higher power in addition to lab tests. I feel so blessed to be able to have muscle testing as a tool in my practice and am still amazed when it works so quickly to help in the healing process. I was overjoyed with the results and so when she.

If you give the body what it wants, it has no choice but to respond in a positive and healing fashion.

There are many tricks to this type of testing that need to be addressed, recognized and overcome to get a clean accurate answer.

Things that affect the accuracy of muscle testing: 

You need to first be electric enough to test.  To test yourself to see if you are electric, touch the center of your brow just at the bridge of your nose, then test the indicator muscle with the intention of checking your electricity. If you test weak, you are electric. This is good. If you test strong, you need to adjust your body’s electrical system so that you can be of use to yourself and others.

How do you become electric enough to do your own muscle testing?

  • Drink a big glass of water. It always expands the aura and most people are dehydrated anyway.
  • Eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. Many people do not eat their six servings/day minimum.
  • Rotate your ankles.  Many energy meridians are disrupted if your ankles don’t rotate and slide easily.
  • Walk on the lawn with bare feet. This connects you to the earth’s energy and grounds you.
  • Have a neck adjustment to align your C1 (first cervical vertebrae). Depression, spaciness, decreased ability to concentrate and even headaches occur when C1 is “out”.
  • Get rid of your under-wire bras.  The wire can deflect the energy coming up from the earth and block it as it tries to migrate on its normal path over the top of your head and down. Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer’s book Dressed To Kill” expands this concept. They explain the theory behind how wearing an under-wire bra could actually be a core cause of breast cancer!
  • State your intention to be electric. Your body will listen to it. Just focus.
  • Take supplements to make you electric:
    • Ionic minerals, Organically bound minerals and lots of dark leafy vegetables all help build your muscle testing abilities
    • Standard Process brand RNA and Super EFF.  Take 1-2/day for a few weeks and extra just before testing if necessary.

Ego and overlying beliefs: If you think you know what’s best for you or your client you can overpower the answer to the muscle test. I have seen practitioner’s muscle test that a client needs too many supplements. After all, they have overhead and need to MOVE that product. I just don’t feel right about that, but I know that every person is attracted to the healer that they need at the time.  You may do well with a healer for several years, then, one appointment you feel something “just isn’t right”.

Don’t be afraid to ask for a referral. Don’t be afraid to expand your healing team and get a second opinion. I have been helped by at least 20 healers on my own path of transformation and education. It’s a big world out there and you really need to go with the people that are going to help you make the most progress. It’s important to feel good vibrations with the people you work with so that you can be honest and open.

Most healers really do want you to get better. We all need to pay our bills, but it’s the thrill of making a difference in someone’s life that really feeds us. It’s your job to find people that meld with your vibrational frequency—for every area of your life.

Use common sense: If you are muscle testing you need 90 tablets of a substance when just the day before you tested you needed three, there is something wrong. Seek a second opinion.

Test with neutral facial expression. Smiling or frowning may affect the outcome of the muscle testing.

Try this test: In the company of a few friends, have one friend come to the front of the room with their back facing the audience and one arm held straight out to the side.  The arm will be the indicator muscle. Without letting the test person see your hand, either give a thumbs up sign or a thumbs down sign to the audience.

Thumbs up means everyone smiles and thinks loving thoughts. Thumbs down means they should think bad or negative thoughts about the person. Using the arm as a testing muscle, see if your friend can hold their arm up under both pressures as you gently pull down on their wrist during the thumbs up experiment and the thumbs down experiment. End with a thumbs up! This is a great start on how to teach muscle testing to each other.

Magnets:  Some practitioners have you take off all magnets before muscle testing, or at least test with the intention of having the magnets off the body.  Feel free to test if magnets are needed. Take each magnetic apparatus, have the person look at it and then test the arm strength. Magnets sometimes give different results by covering up or redirecting energy to different areas of the body. If the person usually wears a magnetic apparatus then you need to do the muscle testing with it on (but really they should only wear these things if they are good for the body.)

Some people think watches do the same thing. I have never had a problem with people wearing their watches because, but it’s always been my intention that it does not change the testing results. I guess that’s an example of my ego influencing a test! I don’t have people turn their head to the left, uncross their arms or legs, stand on one foot or cross their eyes for muscle testing. I’ve seen all of these things done to supposedly increase the effectiveness of muscle testing over the years.

Addictions: If you are addicted to tobacco, alcohol, chocolate, etc. and keep asking “Can I have some?” the answer will eventually be “yes”. When your body goes through withdrawal, that is a dramatic process. If the abuse substance will take away the symptoms and having it makes it easier on the body, the body will opt for the substance. Now, if you are annoying your guides and angels with the same question over and over, I think they get disgusted with you and just give up, “Oh for goodness sakes . . .We already gave our opinion and you are not open to it, so EAT the chocolate!”

Drinking and Alcoholism: I once had a client have me test whether he needed apricot brandy. His wife brought him in and she never brought him back. He tested he needed 5 ounces a day (way less than what he was actually drinking). She was disgusted. She wanted me to tell him to stop drinking. That’s not what HE wanted! (Trying to control the healing and health of others just doesn’t often work.) He wasn’t about to give up drinking, and told me he drank over two fifths of the stuff a day to “cut the pain”.

So what makes sense to you? I’d rather give advice that he may connect with and take some things seriously. Wouldn’t it be nice not to invalidate the whole exam for him? Maybe he would use some of the recommendations and open up his mind to different perspectives. Or you could throw your hour of recommendations in the toilet because you have told him what he most does not want to hear so stops listening from the beginning. Sorry, lady. It’s never a good idea to make an appointment for another person who is not open to change.

 “If you think other people are the cause of your problems, you will have to send the rest of the world in for therapy for YOU to get better!”            Dr. Wayne Dyer

Smoking: If your intention is to quit smoking and you want guidance, a better question to ask through muscle testing is, “It is my full intention to quite smoking within 30 days (or whatever your goal is). How many cigarettes will I need today to wean myself off to realize my intended goal?” Then muscle test 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. until your fingers come apart.

A note on smokingLouise Hay, author of You Can Heal Your Life says that most people who smoke have a history of unresolved conflict with a parent or parental person.  Once the forgiveness work is done, there is no need to smoke any longer.

Now if you haven’t done the forgiveness work you would still find ways to abuse your own body—why not EAT MORE? Think about it. I’ve found her work to be very accurate for her theory on smoking.

Spiritual Lessons: Sometimes muscle testing will be accurate in ways you do not comprehend. Maybe you need to get a strange answer. Maybe it’s the right answer for you at the time. Maybe you need to work through lessons of discernment or trust or standing up for your rights. I don’t know what those lessons are for you. What kind of lessons do you surround yourself with? What kind of lessons do you see others close to you working through? Most likely you have the same ones or are modeling how to overcome some of the same ones on that continuum. See above—Trust the Process.

When muscle testing supplements in bottles, hold the bottom end of the bottle to your solar plexus or in your lap.  Sometimes lids are made with chemicals like formaldehyde, which most people are allergic to, and the body picks up the vibration of the lid instead of the vibration of the supplement.

Ask the right questions: The questions you ask are important. Most of the inaccuracy from this method happens because we don’t ask the correct questions. Asking, “Will this supplement cause side effects?” or “Am I asking the right questions?” is a lot different than asking, “Should I move to Kansas?” You will have to determine your own limitations when using muscle testing. We each have our gifts. Mine is medical intuitive, not prophecy oriented. My muscle testing is not accurate in the areas of love and for tapping into future events.

Some days are just not good days to test. If you end up getting weird answers with your muscle testing, can’t keep your electricity, and can’t focus on your work then put the muscle testing off to another day. Use your common sense.

Need vs. Allergy: The AMA is now recommending that you get between 1000-1500 mg of calcium per day to prevent osteoporosis, but which kind of calcium?

Case Study: Jean, a thin-boned, post menopausal, 48 year old woman, came in concerned about osteoporosis coupled with the fact that she was not willing to take any type of hormone replacement. Jean had been taking oyster shell calcium she had gotten from her local grocery store.  When I tested her for calcium, sure enough, she needed it (a sign she was not taking enough of the oyster shell to begin with).

With oyster shell being her only option, the body said, “If this is the only form that is available to our body, we will just have to do the best we can to incorporate it into our system.” But by taking a form that was not optimal to her individual body, she was overtaxing her kidneys and stones were beginning to form causing back pain just below her ribs. In effect, her body was allergic to the type of calcium.

The body’s need will always override the allergic side effect.

By changing the quality of question to, “Of these eight brands and types of calcium, which bottle would be the best for Jean’s body, and testing each bottle individually?” I was able to pick a type of calcium that would be utilized by her body with no side effects. (Since 2018 the need for calcium has been exchanged for a need for vitamin D–before that it was vitamin E. How the world changes. . .)

Ask the question out loud. This will prevent sloppiness and help you to focus better while you are muscle testing.  It also prevents you from going too fast.

Children and muscle testing: Children learn how to muscle test in less than 30 minutes. They do not have any misconceptions and limitations about accuracy. Muscle testing is a game to them. They don’t have anything to lose and it’s fun and different.  God uses them as little conduits. It’s really very cool. Adults think they have to have “special abilities” and that it is a difficult thing to learn. Shake lose of that thinking NOW. Work with a child if you must to learn this awesome technique. You CAN do this. There are kinesiology classes in your community right now you probably have never heard of. Explore that. You’ll be really glad you did.

Muscle testing is both a science and an art. The most accurate testers are artists in their fields. They work with unconditional love and purity. Guides and angels follow them around just waiting to be called on to assist. These artists are not afraid to use their love in asking for help to accomplish the higher purpose of the soul they are working on. They work without an attachment to the outcome and set their egos aside for the good of the client. They do not judge.  They are only present to help. These are the kind of people you want to find for your healing team.

American Indian Way of  Muscle Testing: Try this. It is slower, but some people can feel the difference with more accuracy to start. Hold the product or written phrase on a piece of paper to your chest. Hold the intention of knowing that your body will tell you if the product or request is good for you. If you fall or slightly float forward, your body is vibrating that you need the product. If you fall backwards, you should not take the product. This method is easy to do if you do not have the confidence to learn the finger method of muscle testing. It’s a pretty slow way of testing unless you are just asking a few questions.

Practice, practice, practice: Muscle testing is a tool. The more you practice the better you will get. It took me several months of testing, practice, questioning and skepticism to finally trust my higher power. New processes and techniques always take time to build that comfort level around them. Sometimes you just have to go on faith.  Release any expectations you may have and just let it happen.

Let your intention be that you are protected and watched over by angels and that they will not let you hurt yourself or anyone else in the learning process. And if you are skeptical like I was, ask yourself, “What have I got to lose? Would following the answer from this technique hurt me? Would trusting the answer and giving the recommendation a try conflict with the other healing methods I am now utilizing?” If the answer to those questions is no, why not try it for 2-4 weeks and see if there are any changes for you?

Your confidence will increase as you get positive feedback from what you are doing. Start with simple, reproducible answers. Good luck!   Last updated 2/24/20.

Helpful Links and References on Muscle Testing: