Muscle Testing and Applied Kinesiology: What Studies Show

What kinesiology is, and what it isn't

The word is misleading. In science, kinesiology simply means the study of movement: how muscles, joints and nerves produce motion. American universities have whole kinesiology departments, and exercise physiologists and athletic trainers graduate from them. That field has nothing to do with what is offered in some chiropractic offices, wellness centers and weekend seminars as "kinesiology" or, more often in the United States, simply as "muscle testing."

What is meant there is a method of alternative medicine, or rather a family of methods, whose common core is the muscle test. The idea: a muscle reacts to a stimulus, a substance, a thought, a question, with strength or weakness, and that reaction reveals what is good for the body or the psyche, what burdens it, and where a block sits.

Where the muscle test comes from

Manual muscle testing itself is legitimate hands-on work. Physical therapists Henry and Florence Kendall standardized in the 1940s how to grade the strength of individual muscles by hand, for example after polio or a nerve injury; their textbook Muscles: Testing and Function first appeared in 1949. These tests measure whether a muscle can work.

The reinterpretation came in 1964. The Michigan chiropractor George Goodheart observed a muscle weakness in a patient that improved after treatment and built Applied Kinesiology (AK) on it. Its principle: the muscle test shows not only strength but dysfunction throughout the body, from organs to intolerances. Goodheart combined this with acupuncture meridians, reflex points and nutrition. In the 1970s his followers organized the International College of Applied Kinesiology, which still certifies practitioners, most of them chiropractors.

In 1973 his student, the California chiropractor John F. Thie, turned it into a lay program: Touch for Health, muscle tests and "balances" you can learn yourself. From there the movement branched out. Paul Dennison developed Educational Kinesiology, better known as Brain Gym, for learning and school; other schools focused on emotions, stress or relationships. In the 1990s the psychiatrist David R. Hawkins claimed in Power vs. Force that the muscle test could even tell truth from lies and measure the "level of consciousness" of a person, a book or a place. With that, the test had finally moved from muscle to oracle. Today the same core technique is also sold under brand names such as Nutrition Response Testing, often together with supplements the practitioner sells.

What gets sold as "kinesiology"

School	Founder, year	What the test is supposed to show
Manual muscle testing	Kendall & Kendall, 1949	Muscle strength (physical therapy, neurology)
Applied Kinesiology (AK)	George Goodheart, 1964	Organ dysfunction, intolerances, deficiencies
Touch for Health	John F. Thie, 1973	Energy balance for laypeople, meridians
Educational Kinesiology (Brain Gym)	Paul Dennison, 1980s	Learning blocks, focus
Emotional schools	Various, from the 1980s	Stress, beliefs, old issues
"Truth testing"	David R. Hawkins, 1995	True or false, a "scale of consciousness"

How a muscle test works

The basic form is nearly the same in every school. The person being tested holds one arm out to the side or forward, usually at shoulder height. The tester places two fingers or a flat hand on the wrist or forearm and presses down evenly for one or two seconds while the person resists. First a baseline is set: how firm is the arm normally? Then comes the stimulus. The person holds a substance in the hand or against the body, thinks of a situation, says a sentence aloud, or the tester asks a question.

If the arm "holds," the stimulus counts as strengthening or the answer as yes. If it "switches off," the stimulus counts as a burden or the answer as no. There are finger variants you can do alone, such as the O-ring test, and surrogate tests in which a third person is tested on behalf of a child or a pet.

What the studies show

The muscle test is easy to test, and it has been tested often. The decisive trick is blinding: neither the person tested nor the tester may know what is being tested at that moment. Then only the body can answer, not the expectation. Under these conditions the test has failed in every well-controlled study we know of.

The claim and the test

Study	What was tested	Result
Kenney et al., 1988	Does AK detect nutrient status?	No agreement with lab values
Luedtke et al., 2001	Does the test detect wasp venom allergy?	No better than chance
Hall et al., 2008	Review of studies on AK and kinesiology	No evidence of diagnostic value
Schwartz et al., 2014	Can experienced testers tell true from false statements, blinded?	No better than chance

The 2001 study is especially revealing. People with and without a confirmed wasp venom allergy were tested with concealed vials. The kinesiological diagnoses were right no more often than a coin toss, and the same person was often rated differently on a repeat test. In 2008 the review by Hall and colleagues did find individual positive studies, but none that showed reliable diagnosis under blinded, properly controlled conditions. The 1988 study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association compared AK assessments of vitamin status with blood tests and found no agreement. Medical allergy organizations therefore consider kinesiological tests for allergies, intolerances or deficiencies unsuitable.

Why the arm drops anyway: the ideomotor effect

Here is the interesting part: nobody who experiences a muscle test is imagining things. The arm really does give way. The reason is called the ideomotor effect, described in 1852 by the English physiologist William B. Carpenter: the mere idea of a movement produces tiny, unconscious muscle activity. The same effect moves the pendulum, the planchette on a Ouija board and the dowsing rod.

In a muscle test, two people are involved at once. The tester expects an answer and, without noticing, presses a little harder, a little more at an angle, or a few tenths of a second longer. The person tested also expects something, feels the sugar, the question, their own doubt, and resists a little less. The psychologist Ray Hyman described in 1999 how muscle tests at a demonstration produced convincing results when done openly, and none when blinded.

For shadow work, that is not a letdown but an invitation. The muscle test does not show what is in the jar. It can show what you expect, fear, or have not admitted to yourself. That is not a small finding. It is just a finding about you, not about your liver.

Two ways practitioners work

Talk with practitioners and you meet two very different attitudes. One treats the muscle test as diagnosis and tests foods, supplements or "burdens." The other explicitly describes the work as stress support: the test is a way into a conversation, a moment when clients notice that a topic moves them. The German professional association for applied kinesiology, for instance, says on its website that anyone can learn to use the muscle test in basic seminars, which frames the method as a lay practice, not medical diagnostics. Anyone who reads the studies sees that the second attitude is the one compatible with the evidence.

There is also a gentler reason sessions feel helpful. A calm room, an attentive person, touch and time are not nothing. Research on expectation and ritual, summarized in our piece Do spells actually work?, shows that attention and structure can change how we feel. That is worth naming honestly, instead of attributing it to the arm.

What we don't promise

We do not claim that a muscle test detects allergies, intolerances, nutrient deficiencies, diseases or blocks; controlled studies show the opposite. We do not claim it can tell truth from lies. And we explicitly advise against cutting foods, stopping medication or postponing a medical workup because of a muscle test. The same caution applies to adjacent methods we have looked at, such as the two-point method of quantum healing.

Practically: how to work with it

• Separate diagnosis from self-exploration. For symptoms and allergies there are validated tests. Use the muscle test as a mirror of your expectation, not as a lab replacement.
• Run the blind test. Have someone prepare two identical, sealed jars, one with sugar, one with salt. Neither you nor the tester knows which is which. Twenty rounds, write down each result, then open the jars. It is the most honest lesson in ideomotor action there is.
• Ask about attitude. A good practitioner tells you what the method cannot do. Anyone who diagnoses, promises healing, or "tests" you for supplements they sell is the wrong person.
• Keep what helps. What often helps in a session is attention, calm and a conversation. That is not little, and it can be named honestly.
• Stay with yourself. When a test says "no," ask what you were afraid of. Often that is the real answer.

Frequently asked questions

What is kinesiology in alternative medicine?

A family of methods built around the muscle test: a muscle is supposed to respond to a substance, a thought or a question with strength or weakness and so reveal what burdens you. In science, kinesiology simply means the study of human movement.

How does a muscle test work?

You hold one arm out; the tester presses briefly on your wrist. Then a stimulus is added, such as a substance, a thought or a question, and the tester notes whether the arm holds or gives way.

Is applied kinesiology scientifically proven?

No. In blinded studies, for example on wasp venom allergy (2001) and on true and false statements (2014), the muscle test performed no better than chance.

Why does the arm really drop during muscle testing?

Because of the ideomotor effect: expectations produce tiny unconscious muscle movements in both the person tested and the tester. The arm really gives way, but because of expectation, not because of the substance.

Can muscle testing detect food sensitivities?

Not reliably. Allergies and intolerances have medical tests. Do not cut foods, stop medication or delay seeing a doctor on the basis of a muscle test.

Who invented applied kinesiology?

The American chiropractor George Goodheart founded Applied Kinesiology in 1964. His student John F. Thie turned it into the lay program Touch for Health in 1973, the root of many of today's schools.

Sources and further reading

• Kenney J. J. et al., "Applied kinesiology unreliable for assessing nutrient status," Journal of the American Dietetic Association 88 (1988).
• Luedtke R., Kunz B., Seeber N., Ring J., "Test-retest-reliability and validity of the Kinesiology muscle test," Complementary Therapies in Medicine 9 (2001).
• Hall S., Lewith G., Brien S., Little P., "A review of the literature in applied and specialised kinesiology," Forschende Komplementarmedizin 15 (2008).
• Schwartz S. A. et al., "A double-blind, randomized study to assess the validity of applied kinesiology (AK) as a diagnostic tool," Explore 10 (2014).
• Ray Hyman, "The Mischief-Making of Ideomotor Action," The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine 3 (1999).
• William B. Carpenter, on ideomotor action, Royal Institution lecture, 1852.
• Florence and Henry Kendall, Muscles: Testing and Function, 1949.
• John F. Thie, Touch for Health, 1973.
• More in the magazine: How to use a pendulum · Dowsing rods · Do spells actually work? · Quantum healing examined

This article is not medical advice. For allergies, intolerances or any symptom, see a physician. Questions about an order: 28@templeofdesire.com.