What is Muscle Testing? by Dr. Alicia Armitstead

Muscle testing is how I identify the root causes of health concerns to help my patients heal. Muscle testing is a way to get biofeedback from the body so I can understand what the body needs. When I design specific nutrition programs for my patients, I use muscle testing to identify what organs need support and which nutrition supplements are needed to help the body heal. 

The natural state of the body is to heal itself. My goal is to help the body get back to that natural state by helping it detox and support it with the right nutrition. Supporting the body with the right nutrition includes supporting it with the correct food and whole-food supplements. I give the patient dietary changes and whole food supplements depending on how the body muscle tests. Food really is medicine. 

I use some homeopathy and herbs, but the majority of supplements I use are from Biotics Research and Standard Process. Both companies make food supplements. 

Types of Muscle Testing Techniques at Healing Arts NYC

• Nutrition Response Testing - Using muscle testing to identify what organs need nutrition.

• Morphogenic Field Technique - I also use three other forms of muscle testing. I use muscle testing to identify what nutrition is missing at the cellular level called Morphogenic Field Technique.

• Applied Kinesiology - I also use muscle testing as a chiropractor to identify what muscles need to be released and where to adjust the spine and joints. This type of chiropractic is called Applied Kinesiology 

• Psych-K - Lastly, I use muscle testing to identify subconscious beliefs that are getting in the way of healing and use neurological exercises to get the brain neurons to fire differently. This technique is called Psych-K

Muscle testing started in the 1960s with Dr. George Goodheart, who was a chiropractor. He was the first person to make a correlation between finding a weak muscle and then using chiropractic therapy to make the weak muscle stronger. From there, chiropractors started using it to be very specific about their adjusting. Later on, muscle testing branched out to include nutrition and the brain. 

Using muscle testing as a chiropractor is called Applied Kinesiology. Not all chiropractors use Applied Kinesiology, also known as AK. It is a certification chiropractors get outside of college. Other doctors can get certified in AK, but the majority are chiropractors. In my opinion, chiropractors who use AK can be more specific with their adjustments and tend to do more muscle work in helping their patients, which allows them to get better results than the average chiropractor. 

Examples of How Muscle Dr. Armitstead Uses Muscle Testing

• If a patient presents with shoulder pain, the doctor of Applied Kinesiology may test individual shoulder muscles to verify which muscles are functioning properly and which are not.

• A single muscle may be used as an indicator to gauge the reactions of the body. For example, a strong muscle may become weak when the doctor pushes the spine in a certain direction. This tells me how to adjust.

• Strong muscles become weak when toxic food is placed on the body. Conversely, weak muscles may strengthen when the appropriate vitamin is placed on the body. This is how muscle testing is used with nutrition.

• Strong muscles become weak when emotionally responding to words. Words are sound waves that go through the ear canal, register in the brain, and your body will respond. This is how muscle testing is used to identify subconscious beliefs. 

• In the field of psychology, Dr. David Hawkins was a spiritual teacher and psychiatrist who lived from 1913-2002. He used muscle testing and words to develop a map of consciousness. He has written many books about it. His most famous book is Power vs. Force. 

In the field of biology, Dr. Bruce Lipton is a cell biologist who has written a book called Biology of Belief. In his book, he goes into great detail about the cell and quantum physics to show that genes and DNA do not control our biology; instead, DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell, including the neurological stimulation from our positive and negative thoughts.

DNA is not something you inherited from your parents that is written in stone. The code is written in stone, but not all of it is fully used and expressed. The DNA that the cell actually uses is ever-changing, and different parts turn on and off depending on the cell’s environment. The cell’s environment includes what nutrition is available to the cell. That’s why what we eat matters to our health. It also includes the toxins the cell is surrounded by.

The toxins I test for include heavy chemicals, heavy metals, food sensitivities, and any type of virus, bacteria, fungus, mold, or parasite infection.  I have these toxins in glass homeopathic vials that, when placed on the body, the body can pick up on the energy through the glass and send a signal to the brain. 

If the toxic substance bothers the body, the strong muscle will go weak. If the toxic substance does not bother the body, the strong muscle stays strong. The way to look at the body picking up on the energy through the glass vials is the same way you would think of sunlight going through a window; you walk in on a hot car on a hot day. Energy is in the form of a wave. There are radio waves and microwaves; anything that has energy gives off an energy wave. 

According to Einstein, anything that has mass has energy. That is what his famous equation is. E=mc2, energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. This means anything with mass has energy in the form of a wave. Muscle testing is a way to tap into how the body responds to waves.

We use muscle testing to give the gift of health by providing necessary individualized integrative care. We understand that many people find us after a long journey of chronic conditions and failed attempts at permanent relief. Our aim is simple: to support our patients with the necessary tools to provide the joy of true health.

A patient who has shortness of breath goes to the pulmonologist, but the pulmonologist doesn’t find anything wrong. A doctor who muscle tests would see what the root cause was of the shortness of breath and then give lifestyle changes based on those findings, including different foods eaten and supplements to help support the lungs. 

Caught early on, a patient will be on the road to recovery before more serious problems set in. Western medicine is looking for disease. I am looking for dysfunction at the cellular level, and when I find it, I am using chiropractic, nutrition, detox support, or emotional support to help the body heal. 

To look at the function of the body, I use Nutrition Response Testing to muscle test organs. Muscle testing is hard to explain but easy to feel. So when I’m explaining it in person, I like to explain as I’m showing the patient how to do it so they feel it. I will apply pressure to the patient’s extended arm with one hand and then apply pressure on an organ with the other hand, let’s say the stomach. 

IF the stomach is stressed and not functioning at 100%, then the nervous system will respond by reducing energy to the extended arm, causing the arm to weaken and drop. This happens because the body doesn’t care about the arm. It wants to protect the stomach. At the initial visit, I will do this muscle testing on all organs. A drop in your arm indicates underlying stress in the organ, which affects your health. In this way, I will know what organs go weak and which are strong. 

There is a good muscle testing demonstration where I show this in a video. After I test each organ, I then test the toxins to see what is stressing out the weak organs. The toxins I muscle test for include heavy metals, toxic chemicals, parasites, fungi, and even foods that can hinder our organs. These stressors are things that often go unidentified in standard medical testing.

Nutrition Response Testing not only identifies what is bothering organs but also identifies which nutritional supplement is needed for healing. By muscle testing specific supplements against the weak organs, we can find which supplement brings the organ back to strength. This way, a unique program is created just for you based on the biofeedback from your body. 

If I want to go deeper in muscle testing the body for toxins, instead of putting my hand on the organ, I would muscle test the energy field of the organ. This way of muscle testing is called Morphogenic Field Technique. The Morphogenic Field Technique is like Nutrition Response Testing in that it tests the body to find stressors and nutritional supplement support, but instead of testing organs, it tests the energy field of the body, also known as the morphogenic field. The morphogenic field or M field concept also comes from the quantum physics equation, E=mc2, where we are giving off an energy field because we have mass. 

When I muscle test using Morphogenic Field Technique, instead of putting the homeopathic vials on the body, I put the homeopathic vials in the patient’s energy field and see if the arm goes weak or stays strong. Another name for this energy field is aura. When testing the energy field of a patient, you are testing at the cellular level, not the organ level. Cells make up tissue, and tissue make up organs, so with this type of testing, you are testing two levels deeper than if you were to test the organ. 

Psych-K uses muscle testing to test belief statements. When someone says a statement, you hear it because the sound wave goes through the ear and into the brain. When I muscle test a patient, the body responds to the sound waves, and if it is a true statement for them, their arm will stay strong, and if the statement is false, then their arm will go weak. This is based on the energy of sound waves either resonating with the person with a true statement or causing interference with a false statement.

Identifying belief statements that are hindering someone’s ability to heal is the reason I got certified in Psych-K. After about ten years of doing chiropractic and nutritional work, I noticed how not all patients would heal the way I expected. Some patients would heal slower than others, and I wanted to figure out why. When I was first introduced to the idea that the beliefs we hold could be hindering our way of life, and there was a way to muscle test it to identify which beliefs, I was super excited! I felt like this was the answer for any patient who was slowly responding to a nutritional or chiropractic program. Not only was it the answer for my patients, but it was the answer for my own stress management as well. Learning Psych-K gave me a tool to discover my own limiting beliefs and rewire them. 

These limiting beliefs are in the subconscious, things we might not even be aware of. Have you ever stayed up too late watching TV? Have you ever worked out five times in one week to go and eat three pieces of cake on Saturday night? Self-sabotage is the subconscious at work. It is scientifically proven we live 99-95% of our lives from the subconscious. Wouldn’t it be nice to reprogram the subconscious so it was working for us?

Common belief statements that people go weak to when using Psych-K:

• I love myself.
• My body can heal. 
• I am healthy.
• I am safe.
• I trust myself.
• Life is easy.
• It is safe to relax.

When a patient goes weak on any of the above statements, I then take them through a series of easy neurological exercises to make the nerves function differently. After a Psych-K session, you will literally be thinking and, therefore, acting differently. I have seen Psych-K really help my patients with breakthroughs, not only in their health but also in the areas of behavioral/habit change and stress reduction.

Using Psych-K, Applied Kinesiology, Nutrition Response Testing, and Morphogenic Field Technique is how I help patients heal. A personalized program based on muscle testing the body is how I create health plans for people so that they feel supported structurally, nutritionally, and emotionally. 

Please contact me today if you have any questions about finding relief from IBS.

Dr. Alicia Armitstead

Healing Arts NYC