When muscles won’t act like they ‘should’

It’s all about accurate muscle testing. Finding an accurate indicator muscle is the absolute most important thing to teach Specialized Kinesiology students because, if you can’t trust what the muscles are telling you, there is no point to moving ahead. One of the most frustrating things that can happen to a new SK student is when the muscle just won’t do what it’s supposed to.

I remember way back when I took my first Touch for Health class. I can home super-excited because I loved it so much. In class, everything was easy and I felt like this was something I could be really good at. And then I tried to work on my husband.

No dice.

His muscle simply wouldn’t unlock when I tried to do pre-checks. It wouldn’t budge. I tried some of the things we had discussed in class (switching on, drinking water) and they made zero difference. What eventually did help was teaching him how to muscle test. Once he tried doing it himself, he had a much better idea of what I was looking for when working on him and, rather than staying locked no matter what, he would relax when he felt any sign of stress, weakness, unlocking, etc.

There is a big difference between someone like my sweetheart who simply wouldn’t allow a muscle to move and true over-facilitation. If a muscle is seriously over-facilitated, than working with a system like SIPS (Stress Indicator Point System) or Powers of Stress from Applied Physiology will allow you to gather all the stress on a muscle, balance it, and move on.

How can you tell if this is what you are dealing with? One easy way is to try a different muscle. If you try 2 or 3 different muscles and they are all rigidly refusing to move, chances are this is more overall stress, lack of electrical communication, or refusal to give permission. It is unlikely that they are all truly over-facilitated. If this is the case, the following suggestions from the Touch for Health Complete Edition may be helpful.

A few suggestions that aren’t in the manual but that I would like to share based on my years of teaching and working with clients:

• As I mentioned above, teach the other person how to muscle test you. Feeling for locked and unlocked muscles will give them a better sense for how this feels in their own body.
• Have them give verbal permission. Yes, we always ask permission before working with someone, but I have found that, sometimes, this needs to be repeated as you are actually starting to work together. The act of saying the words out loud serves to ground you both, refocus attention, and reinforce to the body that this contact is safe.
• Educate them properly about what you are doing. If there is any doubt in someone’s mind about whether what you are doing is valid or ethical, it is going to influence their physiology. You can ask if they have any other questions or concerns about how this works. You may find that, once their concerns have been heard and you have answered them fully, they are much more receptive.

One of my instructors, the great Cheryn Donaldson told me in class that a good kinesiologist is always surprised. That stuck with me. If you are not being consistently surprised by the results you are getting and by what you notice when muscle testing, you might not be doing it right!

Be amazing!

Alexis