Manual muscle testing is used in assessment and it can be used in two different ways:

1. to provide muscle biofeedback in response to a stimulus or
2. to evaluate body function through the muscle meridian connection.

The practitioner can use either or both methods of assessment as a means of gaining more precise information about the person and the treatment they need.

Muscle biofeedback

A single muscle test carried out in conjunction with a specific stimulus will give a strong or weak response thus providing muscle biofeedback. The muscle, called an indicator muscle, must be checked to ensure that it is functioning properly before it is used for this purpose otherwise the test is unreliable. Unfortunately many practitioners who claim they are using kinesiology are not trained and their lack of awareness means their results are unreliable and this gives kinesiology a bad name. A practitioner can use muscle biofeedback to test the person’s response to any stimulus. It can be used to locate an area or point of dysfunction in the body, to discover the response to a treatment point, the direction of a movement, a remedy, a food, an emotional word, a statement etc.

So how does the practitioner do this? Here are some examples.

If the type of stimulus is activating an area of dysfunction in the body the person or the practitioner touches that area or point while the practitioner tests a clear indicator muscle. If the previously strong indicator muscle now weakens this indicates that there is stress in that location. If the stimulus being tested is a remedy in a bottle, the bottle containing the remedy is held under the the person’s nose or placed on their parotid gland (on the cheek) while the practitioner tests a clear indicator muscle.
If the stimulus results in a strong muscle response it means that stimulus is harmonious to the person’s system. This doesn’t necessarily mean it is the best stimulus.
If the muscle response is weak however this indicates the stimulus is causing some stress resulting in temporary disorganisation in the person’s system. The explanation for this seems to be that if the stimulus causes stress, the body/mind system prioritises the stress factor and is unable to simultaneously maintain the finely tuned neurological communication with the muscle being tested.

Muscle/Meridian (associated organ/gland) assessment

In addition to an indicator muscle test being used in assessment to provide muscle biofeedback to a specific stimulus, kinesiology uses a number of muscle tests to evaluate muscle balance throughout the body, the energy in the meridians of the acupuncture system and their associated organs and glands. George Goodheart discovered that individual muscles are linked energetically with specific acupuncture meridians (energy pathways in the body). As meridians energise organs and glands it is possible to evaluate their energetic function through muscle testing. For example the latissiumus dorsi muscle is energetically linked with the spleen meridian which energises the pancreas. Kinesiology assessment uses this information and may involve testing anything from fourteen to over forty muscles bilaterally. An analogy might be to think of a kinesiologist as a body electrician going round all the circuits testing them to find out which are working and which are not.