Hi Fellas,
Anyon learnt Kenesiology or had it tried on them?
What do you think about muscle testing?
Garry
Printable View
Hi Fellas,
Anyon learnt Kenesiology or had it tried on them?
What do you think about muscle testing?
Garry
I've had quite a bit of experience with various kinesiologists over the years. There are some good ones and some really dodgy ones. I wouldn't use muscle testing to determine whether or not I needed brain surgery but it's good for stuff like meridian balancing, emotional stuff and accelerating healing. I've found that unless the muscle tester is in tune to what they are doing the whole process can get very subjective. What I mean is that the idea of muscle testing as I see it is to train the body/subconscious to respond to a yes or a no, but if the mind starts getting in the way then we can start trying to affect the answers. In any case it's a good method to add to the toolbox.
first off, what you are talking about is NOT kinesiology: kinesiology is the scientific study of muscle function; you are talking about Applied Kinesiology (AK), which is an offshoot of chiropractic, developed, I believe, by a guy named Goodheart;
that said, i think that AK is based generally on entrainment effect and self-fulfilling prophecy, largely because there is to date, no single scientific study that would substantiate the basis on which it makes its diagnostic assumptions, that is, muscle testing under a variety of different situations; for example, the patient holds some item, such as a type of food, and the practitioner muscle tests them to see if they are weakened by holding it;
aside from the total lack of any physiological substrate for this to occur, the fact is that testing whether or not this actually works is very simple: blind the patient and the paractitioner to what is being held, or, indeed if anything at all is being held, and conduct the testing; or, better yet, tell the patient they are holding one thing when they are holding something different, keep the same thing in their hand tell them it's another thing, change the thing they are holding and tell them it's the same thing etc.
I think you would very quickly see that the reliability and validity of this method is essentially non-existent...
as it being good for energy balancing and the like, I agree - they are both highly subjective approaches, so it really doesn't matter what you are doing, as long as it fulfills the client's expectations, and generate a gneralized placebo effect (don't get me wrong, I'm not dismissing placebo effect - it is ctually very effective, and probably one of the best forms of anti-inflammatory medicine out there!)
Your test idea is flawed because muscle testing isn't even supposed to be based on any kind of physiological or pharmicological reaction. The lack of a substrate is irrelevant and blinding the patient completely invalidates the test. The thing is supposed to be largely based on the idea that on some level people know what is good for them and what isn't even if they aren't fully aware of it. The muscle test allows them to access information that they already have but aren't fully concious of so the person DOES need to know what he is holding. It's like if you really should give up refined sugars but you just won't admit it. Holding the sugar cube and muscle testing gets around the lies that you tell yourself or in some cases allows the tester to observe your reactions in a way that wouldn't normally be possible.
Knowledge of the substance is part of the loop. There is a large psyhological component.
sorry, but everything that happens that has an effect on the body involves a physiological reaction; if you balance my chakras, you alter the state of the autonomic nervous system, and that's physiological...Quote:
Originally Posted by omarthefish
actually it would do the opposite, namely make the test valid: if the patient knows the outcome in advance, then it's not a test anymore, because it's simply a trigger for some sort of pre-determined subjective response to occurQuote:
Originally Posted by omarthefish
ah the old "deep down inside I know what's good for me but unfortunately I just can't access that information consciously"; Upledger call this mechanism the Inner Physician, and he goes to great lengths to convince therapists that ultimately the patient knows far better than they ever could hope to what is right for them; and yet, people still get sick and people even die, despite this "fact"; of course the best part of this perspective is that if you treat the person and they don't get better, you can flip it around onto them and surmise that they were just not ready to heal yet...anyway, my question is that why would we have this deep inner health sense if we couldn't access it directly?Quote:
Originally Posted by omarthefish
so let's get this straight: subconsciously, you know refined sugar is bad for you; but you block this out because, hey, you like sugar - so you "lie" to yourself about it, telling yourself that it's ok for you (notice that this part of your brain is now more powerful than your Inner Health Care Provider); but wait: what about the fact that everyone knows CONSCIOUSLY that refined sugar ain't such a great thing? how does that fit into the equation? also, how about someone holding a shellfish who is allergic to them, but who has neve eaten one in their lives? it's obviously bad for them, but they don't know it, so even if they know it's shellfish, they wouldn't, by your logic, have a reaction to it...Quote:
Originally Posted by omarthefish
actually, it's COMPLETELY psychological, and totally subjective: it's self-fulfilling prophecy; and that's why it's not a test: if you have some sort of subjective sensibility about something, no matter what i do it will come out, especially if i tell you before hand what I am expecting you to do when the test is positive...that means, i could do ANYTHING and get the same results - if you are holding refined sugar and my test is to push you from behind, or make you blink or whatever, if I have some sub-conscious predispsition to having a positive reaction, I'll have it no matter what;Quote:
Originally Posted by omarthefish
bottom line, it's all subjective, and therefore, it's not clinical; now, if you had read my post thoroughly, you 'd have noticed that i said something about generalized anti-inlfammatory response; so, if you do "indulge" someone's subjectivity, you are essentially relieving stress; when you do that, you create an opportunity for PSNS to come into paly more ribustly, and the end result is a generalized anti-inlflammatroy response, which can resolve everthing from allergies to chronic low bacl pain to diseases like IBS, to psychological trauma; so I;m not discounting the end result per se - I just don't want people to think that there is any clinical skill behind the outcomes for this sort of thing...
Ah that's right I remember someone else taking the time to correct me about AK vs Kinesiology at some stage but I forgot about that. I guess because the practitioners that I've gone to just call themselves Kinesiologists.
I've had some interesting and positive experiences though.
I hate posts that long so I am skipping the quote feature in favor of italics.
but everything that happens that has an effect on the body involves a physiological reaction
And everything that happens also involves subatomic physics but that doesn't make subatomic physics relevant to health, nutrition or personal decisions.
if the patient knows the outcome in advance, then it's not a test anymore, because it's simply a trigger for some sort of pre-determined subjective response to occur
Your ostrich like grasp of human psychology is staggering.
my question is that why would we have this deep inner health sense if we couldn't access it directly?
You can. Doesn't mean that you necessarily will. In a similar sense, certain schools of psychology say that the only thing the doctor can do is facilitate. Same idea here. BTW, you conflated therapy with medical practice in your argument:
I'm not aware of any connection to therapy and death. . . [black humor]aside from the occasional suicide maybe. [/black humor]Quote:
Upledger call this mechanism the Inner Physician, and he goes to great lengths to convince therapists that ultimately the patient knows far better than they ever could hope to what is right for them; and yet, people still get sick and people even die, despite this "fact"
so let's get this straight: subconsciously, you know refined sugar is bad for you; but you block this out because, hey, you like sugar - so you "lie" to yourself about it,.....how about someone holding a shellfish who is allergic to them, but who has neve eaten one in their lives? it's obviously bad for them, but they don't know it, so even if they know it's shellfish, they wouldn't, by your logic, have a reaction to it...
Excellebt example. I chose sugar as an obvious example to highlight the way people lie to themselves. There are all sorts of less obvious ones though. Things like milk for instance. Milk is fine for some people and just really lousy for others. And just because "everybody knows" that something is bad for you doesn't mean it will affect you personally in the same way. Some people just don't suffer much from the two strips of bacon with their eggs every morning. Some are heart attacks waiting to happen. The shellfish is the best example of all though because it sits right on that cusp of concious vs. unconcious knowledge. If you were actually allergic, holding it in your hands really could cause a response. Some people are so allergic that just contact through the skin can cause a reaction, however mild. In other cases there is all sorts of sub or semi concious knowledge that you have that could be accessed through this sort of thing. That's mostly how intuition works. Your brain processes tons of stuff that doesn't make it to the front row but can sometimes be prompted. Sometimes the information never makes it past "I have a wierd feeling about this." But that sort of guy instinct is often based on information you just didn't conciously process. Classic example of this is the way we judge people based on how they look or talk. VERY few people can articulate WHY they do or don't trust a person. Mostly they just feel it.
it's self-fulfilling prophecy; and that's why it's not a test: if you have some sort of subjective sensibility about something, no matter what i do it will come out, especially if i tell you before hand what I am expecting you to do when the test is positive...
Yes. You obviously need to come at it from a standpoint of neutrality. A subjective sensability is a far cry from objective knowledge. People are confused about how they feel all the time. But you seem to validate the test yourself in the statement above: "no matter what i do it will come out" That's an even stronger stand than I was willing to make myself. But then you went and threw out a red herring invalidating the whole argument: "if i tell you before hand what I am expecting you to do..." Silly rabbit, you don't tell the person before hand what you are expecting them to do. Of course that invalidates the test.
it's all subjective, and therefore, it's not clinical
I missed where someone argued it was "clinical". It certainly wasn't me. I think you need to provide the context specific definition for "clinical" as I sense you are using the term in a very specific way. Also, what is "PSNS" an acronymn for?
Lastly, you are wandering off topic arguing against all sorts of irrelevant non-related issues:
....and the end result is a generalized anti-inlflammatroy response, which can resolve everthing from allergies to chronic low bacl pain to diseases like IBS, to psychological trauma...
Muscle testing is a diagnostic tool. It is not and has never been presented as a treatment of any kind so I don't see how that stuff is relevant to the discussion.
cj is right on. I was going to wade in here, but after seeing what many erroneously dub science here, I thought better of it.
Greenmoon, imo they use that terminology to make themselves sound more professional. When you hear kinesiologist, one usually deduces that some formal, university-level scientific training goes with that title. A Phd or a masters at the least in the way of Physiology with a concentration in biomechanics. It would be like somebody making a system called Applied Biology, and the practitioners refering to themselves as "biologists". You'd immediately think scientific training goes into it and that science supports what they are practicing.
Please show where any of that was claimed on this thread.
It's easy to set up your own arguments and then knock them down. Not so easy to knock down the arguments that are actually being made. All CJ did was tear down a bunch of stuff he experienced in his own past but was never mentioned on this thread.
You guys are just playing with yourselves.
never mentioned? well, the original question was this:Quote:
Originally Posted by omarthefish
and i told him exactly what I thought of muscle testing - that in my opinion it's a lousy methodology because it lacks both validity and reliability, and that it's not in any way an objective measure of anything, which, in clinical medicine, is sort of the definition of a test; I brought up all the other "stuff" only after you came along and made some points disputing my perspectiveQuote:
Originally Posted by fiercest tiger
well, gee, that's pleasant - it's always so nice to see the level of discussion elevated to such a collegial level...I guess in some arenas when you disagree with someone ele's perspective and can't really make much of an argument against it (see post to follow), you denigrate and dismiss them with some sort of sop****ric one-liner...really shores up one's credibility...:rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by omarthefish
non sequitor - we are talking about the level where we are looking for an externally induced change in human physiological function: I "test" your muscle strength under a variety of different conditions - if your muscle is weaker under one of those conditions, the only way for this to occur is either changing something biomechanically or changing something biochemically, both of which are physiological parameters that affect the function of a muscle: on the sub-atomic level there is a change as well, but, relative to the specificity of the biochemical and certainly the biomechanical levels, the changes are too generalized: that is, if you were observing the sub-atomic level during a muscle test or while someone was drinking a glass of water, you might see changes occuring, but they would be too generalized to relate to the specifc activities in question; and the physiological changes that affect muscle strength most certainly effect all the above areasQuote:
Originally Posted by omarthefish
you are one rude MF'r - why do you need to resort to derision? if you don't get my point, ask for clarification; maybe i worded it poorly, maybe I confused some syntax, maybe my perspective is off - but this habit of yours attacking personally simply belies your own immaturity; if you disagree, offer evidence to the contrary; and BTW, what is your level of credentialing to stand as an authority on human psychology anyway? mine is only two years of undergraduate college level courses, a year of graduate level courses in contesxt of my PT training, plus 12 years of direct clinical experience working with various populations where psychological issues are a major factor, such as chronic pain patients and emotionally disturbed kids (the latter about whom I currently consult with psychologists on an almost daily basis), so obviously I have some grasp of how things work in the real world...Quote:
Originally Posted by omarthefish
I should have clarified: John Upledger is an osteopathic physician; he trains people from all fields of health care in something called craniosacral therapy and somatoemotional release, which are manual based approaches to healing that rely almost entirely on the practitioner's (therapist's) intuition and using cues from the patient's "Inner Physician" (his term) to guide the treatment; objective findings are essentially ignored...Quote:
Originally Posted by omarthefish
[QUOTE=omarthefish;712938]
how about someone holding a shellfish who is allergic to them, but who has neve eaten one in their lives? it's obviously bad for them, but they don't know it, so even if they know it's shellfish, they wouldn't, by your logic, have a reaction to it...
The shellfish is the best example of all though because it sits right on that cusp of concious vs. unconcious knowledge. If you were actually allergic, holding it in your hands really could cause a response. Some people are so allergic that just contact through the skin can cause a reaction, however mild. In other cases there is all sorts of sub or semi concious knowle...[yada yada yada, nothing to do with the specific question ]...ostly they just feel it.
that's a great way of not answering my question: let me repeat myself - for someone who never ate a shell fish but who would go into anaphylactic shock if they did, and just for the sake of argument who wouldn't have any visible reaction to it by holding it in their hand (it's in a jar, for example), are you saying that on some sub-conscious level they know that this is going to happen if they do eat it, so they would have a positive test? yes or no; if yes, please provide a proposed mechanism for them to a) have this knowledge and b) for that weakness to occur...
what I meant was, no matter what i use as a test, the result will be the same; I can do the shoulder abduction test, but by the same logic, i could have them stand on one leg and then watch them loose their balance holding a jar of mayonaise, because of the weakness effecting their weight-bearing side gluteus medius; or i could have them perform a fine motor skill before and during and watch it degrade; or i could test visual tracking - all of these are muscle tests, and theoretically any of these muscles could be affected, because we are "testing" for a GENERALIZED response to the offending item; however, the notion that you have some sort of generalized deficiency in muscle strength has no basis in physiological reality, because there is no evidence that shows any mechanism by which this can occur: even, if it's energetic or emotional, when you change emotions, you change physiology (serotonin, levels, e.g.); BTW, I know that the original claim is that specific organs effect different muscles (which is not toally implauseable in regards to referred viscero-somatic pain and dysfunction, but this is usually due to long term chronic adaptation of the nervous system pathways connecting the two), but not all AK practitioners are that specific - many use the arm test by defaultQuote:
Originally Posted by omarthefish
well, i've seen it happen - some AK people tell the patient first about what they are looking forQuote:
Originally Posted by omarthefish
if it's a test, it's clinical, because based on the outcome you will determine the course of your treatment; the progression is implied based on context; PSNS = parasympathetic nervous systemQuote:
Originally Posted by omarthefish
talking about the nature of AK therapy's outcomes is irrelevant and off-topic? if you don't understand how the discussion of a "diagnostic test' relates to a discussion of clinical outcomes, what can i say? I mean, obviously no one gives a darn about the test itself out of context; the implicit question is about how well does AK work based on their utilization of this sort of method of diagnosis?Quote:
Originally Posted by omarthefish
look - muscle testing is the "diagnostic" tool used by AK practitioners to guide their treatment; if the basis on which a treament is determined is suspect, so is the methodology behind choosing the treatment; however, even with the whole apparatus being flawed, you can still get good results, because with the types of treatments they use, they can still create the environment for a generalized anti-inflammatory response to occur, which can result in significant relief of the patient's complaint(s); so, my point is that, despite their faulty reasoning, AK practitioners (as well as many other types of energy healers and the like) can still have good outcomes - the problem is that they atribute the positive outcome to their "methodology", giving them the false sense that there was a causal link methodologically speaking between their diagnosis and treatment to the observed outcome
anyway, I'm getting tired of this - if you want any more perspective on the issue, try this link: http://www.quackwatch.org/01Quackery.../Tests/ak.html
yeah - when you have to excessively explain (I mean once, that's ok) basic concepts of reliability and validity, it gets a little tiresomeQuote:
Originally Posted by Ford Prefect
nicely put - it's one of my pet peeves, having studied kinesiology, to have the term coopted, as if the kinese i studied isn't applicable, and that AK has anything to do with actual principles of kinese - please...those guys wouldn't know a force-couple if it hit them in the head...Quote:
Originally Posted by Ford Prefect
Hi Guys,
thanks for replying, i just bought the book Taiji Bob has mentioned about connective tissue and the like using the finger. No there is a section just by chance i was thinking about my training and muscle testing and there it is in the book too. I havent read the full book ill get into it later but the muscle testing is in it as well.
cheers
Garry
Greetings..
Hi Gary: Rick did the muscle testing on me first at the seminar, i had no idea what it was about.. i was asked to hold my arm out and resist downward pressure, i am not weak in the shoulder area and was able to resist nicely, but.. he did manage to push my arm downward without excessive force.. then, he asked me to point at a distant object.. it was quite interesting that i was able to resist to the point that he was up on his toes adding his weight to the push before my arm yielded.. now, i am a skeptic, so.. i tried this on others with no explanation of expectation, just a simple repitition of the experiment with a concerted effort not to give away my anticipated outcome.. in more than 20 tests, some with martial artists and some just plain folks, each one was consistent with my own experience.. that when the finger was pointed and the intention/attention was on the distant object, the arm was observably more resistant to pressure.. my understanding of this is that the act of pointing with intention activates the CTS, this links the arm to the whole being through a matrix of connective tissue, like an intricate lattice-work of micro-structures supported by minimal muscular involvement..
Further work with Rick highlighted how extraordinarily easy it is to activate this system.. it actually requires no conscious effort, except that we have dismissed it's value for so long that it is a reacquaintance process.. i have been working with this concept for some time and find it remarkable as to how little muscular involvement is needed to accomplish tasks that i previously depended exclusively upon muscles to accomplish.. much of this is dependent on correct alignment, relaxed Kua regions and a developed understanding of "intention".. but, i am compelled to continue this rewarding exploration, even-though it lacks certain quantifiable elements.. I hope you find the book as interesting and beneficial as i did..
Be well..
hey bob - sounds like an application of the occulo gyro cephalic reflex at work - you may know it as "yi nan ling san" - with the eyes, lead the body...
gotta run, more later as able
Greetings..
Hi Chris: I am feeling like there is a unique deception, here.. where when we are receiving pressure input, we focus on that point and the flow of energy gets interupted at that point.. by keeping the mnemonic device "pointing" and our attention open beyond the point of contact, the energy continues to flow and the structure remains stable and active.. we sort of distract ourselves from being too focused... just a recent observation of my own, and i will continue to investigate this interesting situation..
Be well...
Easy to experience but difficult to explain.
Me thinks that if explained any more, the secret will be out (no secret really) but the status quo will surely be over hauled within the present training system.
Take a look around! Nothing wrong with "hugging qi" but it get too New Age and very dull after awhile. Nothing like the smell of chee(se) in the morning!
I shall go and suck on some qi.
But then again...this is not the "unbendable arm" trick. This is about accessing how you truly feel about something.Quote:
Originally Posted by TaiChiBob
Hello TCBob and Garry FT,
The finger pointing method is used not just in internal MA, but even pro Tennis players use similar methods as well.
In Tai Chi, it is NEVER the contact point that does the work anyway. The contact point is merely the "conductor". The power flows through other places while the contact point follows (stick).
Cheers,
John
Hi Guys,
The finger pointing method is used in carpentry, forestry, ditch digging, and most other activities that involve 'extending force'. One aligns the forefinger along the blade of the saw, axe, shovel, etc... and 'points' in the direction of the 'cut'. This produces a much more 'effortless' action, conserving energy while perserving intention.
There is not much new under the sun...but plenty left to be 'rediscovered'. :)