Two of my diagnostic tools are Applied Kinesiology and Clinical Kinesiology. They are often abbreviated into Kinesiology, or AK and CK, and many patients refer to me as their Kinesiologist.

Applied Kinesiology was developed in the 1960′s by George Goodheart, D.C.Dr. Goodheart was a brilliant healer of great distinction.  His first associate was Terry Franks, D.C.  Dr. Franks’ work saved my son’s life and was my inspiration for becoming a chiropractor. I studied Applied Kinesiology and Clinical Kinesiology with Dr. Franks as his associate for four years, as well as attending numerous post-graduate courses.

Each practitioner evolves the technique into his or her own field of expertise.  Here is my concept of how it works:

I see the central nervous system as your body’s master computer.

The musculoskeletal system is a minicomputer, running its own program, and reportingback to the master computer.  Your central nervous system decides how to adapt around all the stresses in your life:  physical, chemical, mental, and emotional stress.

When you have enough vitality to adapt around everything, you feel fine.

When you develop a symptom, however, no matter what that symptom is, it’s the body’s way of saying “Hey, I can’t adapt around everything that’s going on right now.  Help me or I could get hurt here!”

When we respond to that message from the body with symptom suppression alone, the adaptation pattern can be driven deeper into the body.The symptom may change, but healing has not taken place.  Eventually, tissue damage may occur and disease follows.

One of the ways the central nervous system adapts around stress is to change muscle tone and move bones around.  Chiropractors deal with this major adaptation pattern through structural healing techniques unique to them.

Kinesiology is a diagnostic tool that uses a change in muscle tone as a biofeedback technique to ask the body questions. All the body can say through a muscle test is “Yes” or “No”, the muscle either locks or it doesn’t.  The challenge is to ask the right question.  My limitation is I don’t know all the questions to ask.

However, kinesiology has clinically proven itself in my practice as a valuable tool for identifying functional issues, such as:    food intolerances, toxicities, nutritional deficiencies, emotional blockages, cranial blockages, vertebral subluxations, acute and chronic soft tissue injuries, and scar tissue.  It’s not a system for diagnosing disease.

We need medical tests to diagnose pathology and that’s what our medical model does well.  It’s a good disease/trauma care system.  However, functional issues go undiagnosed due to the limitations of testing that’s geared to diagnosing pathology.

In my opinion, there is often a lack of curiosity about underlying causes – as well as a lack of treatment options.  Bridging these two worlds of healing, western medicine and chiropractic care, covers more bases.  It’s important to rule pathology in or out, AND if symptoms are present, find out why and discover what needs to change in your life for you to be as healthy as you want to be.

If you’re interested in a health evaluation utilizing Kinesiology, come on in and we’ll see what you can learn about your health.