Why perform muscle testing

During the early part of my chiropractic career, my treatment mainly consisted of spinal adjusting and muscle therapies.  My treatment was determined by patient history, range of motion findings, and palpation.  For the most part I was getting people better; however, I had a hard time understanding why one patient would respond favorably to the treatment and why someone else wouldn’t.  I realized that in order to have a better understanding of my patients, I needed a better way to evaluate their problem.  I wanted to be treating people at the highest level possible which meant that I needed to be assessing and treating the nervous system.  I tried looking at a few different approaches but once I found AK and muscle testing, I know that I had found what I had been looking for.

The majority of patients seek treatment of a musculoskeletal complaint, i.e. lower back or neck pain, shoulder pain, foot pain, sciatica, etc.  From a chiropractic or physical therapy point of view the goal of the treatment is the same, to restore normal joint mechanics and muscular balance.

Muscle Testing assesses muscular imbalances better than any other diagnostic approach.  It provides a real time view of the muscle imbalances and what is required to correct them.  By correcting muscle testing findings, muscular imbalances will be eliminated.  If muscular imbalances are eliminated, the need for joint manipulation will be eliminated.

Many people often wonder why I do not perform a lot of traditional chiropractic adjusting (even though I still perform traditional adjustments).  The main reason is if I can fix the muscular imbalance than often times the need for an adjustment goes away completely.  Also, if the need of the adjustment is eliminated than the treatment will have a long lasting impact.