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What Is Applied Kinesiology?
By Dr. Chris
Frykman
Shakope, MN
Applied
Kinesiology – AK
– is a system of natural health care. It evaluates our
structural, biochemical and mental aspects. It employs
muscle testing, with other standard methods of
diagnosis. Nutrition, manipulation, diet, meridian
therapy, exercise and education are used therapeutically
to help restore balance and maintain well being,
throughout life. Applied
Kinesiology is your path to less pain, better
performance, more energy, true health and
Vibrant Potential!
It’s not the goal of alternative health care and Applied
Kinesiology to replace standard medical care, rather to
complement it, as each has its place in our society.
Standard medicine has its emphasis on crisis intervention
rather than on health maintenance. This involves early
detection of disease, usually followed by invasive
medical treatment. The techniques used have evolved
from the victorious, decades old battle against
infectious diseases, which today are no longer the
threat they once were. But as the average lifespan has
increased we have confronted a whole new category of
lifestyle and stress related diseases, including heart
disease, diabetes and cancer. Diseases, which, once
past the threshold where detection is possible, may
already be too far advanced for full recovery. Diseases
which can sap the quality of life from the extra years
that have been gained.
There is a revolution underway in health care today. More
people are shifting their focus towards health rather
than sickness, prevention rather than crisis
intervention, and towards improving the quality of
life throughout a full lifespan rather than merely
lengthening existence. It is a revolution of dedicated
professionals in fields often too new and
under-researched for the medical mainstream to embrace,
yet millions of people seek and obtain relief from the
chiropractor, osteopath and acupuncturist, obtaining it
through diet, nutrition, chiropractic adjustments,
meridian therapy, education and lifestyle changes.
Applied
Kinesiology utilizes muscle testing in addition to other
standard diagnostic routines, such as blood pressure,
blood and urine tests, etc., to gather information about
the individual’s internal systems, searching for early
changes that in the long term lead to the onslaught of
disease. The doctor is then able to administer
therapies from among several allied disciplines to delay
declines in health and maintain a high quality of life
right up to the biological limit of aging. In other
words, the promise of this unification of allied
therapies is robust health throughout the duration of a
full lifespan.
The onset of serious disease if often the culmination of
years of small declines in organ vitality. Several
studies have shown that an individual’s ability to
resist disease consists of the reserve capacity of one’s
organs and tissues. Healthy actions taken today can
have a major impact on the outcomes of tomorrow.
Common complaints like headache, insomnia, intestinal
upset, mild depression, anxiety and backache – which
people often ignore or self medicate – are subtle
symptoms of a universal degenerative process along a
spectrum of health. These symptoms are signposts
along the road to disease.
Case history: John saw the company doctor for his annual check-up. His
blood pressure was taken along with tests for urine and
blood. The doctor did a complete physical exam and also
took a chest x-ray. About a week later John went back
to see the doctor for the results. The doctor said
“everything is great, there’s nothing wrong!” But John
wanted to know why he had back pain, sinus headaches and
was very fatigued.
What
John didn’t realize was that his doctor only ruled out
disease. What his doctor should have said was “you
don’t have any disease so you probably have a functional
problem. Functional illness. Problems that are not the
result of disease but “things not working just right.”
These functional problems may be early changes that
ultimately end in disease.
These early changes in the body are detectable and
treatable within the alternative health care disciplines
using Applied Kinesiology. The focus of the Applied
Kinesiologist is to use some or all these disciplines to
develop an interactive functional assessment of a
person’s biologic system, and administer individualized
treatment. The goal of this type of treatment is to
slow the universal degenerative process, thereby
delaying the onset of the diseases that are the endstage
manifestations of this process, like cancer, heart
disease, diabetes, arthritis, and others.
By delaying this universal degenerative process, an
individual need not expect a life of slow declines and
failing capacities. Instead, robust health can be
maintained into old age, right up until the final
confrontation with the maximum biological limit of
aging.
The philosophy is not new. Persius, the Roman scholar, said
“it is far better to cure at the beginning, than at the
end.” More recently, Walter Bortz, M.D., in his book
We Live Too Short and Die Too Long states, “Have we
altered the aging process in any fundamental way – or
have we merely (stopped) premature death? Medicine
is preoccupied with these reparative efforts and has
gaudy credentials of its results, worthy of high
theater. Yet, the results are all foreground. They
don’t affect the basic problem of aging, and they
need to be separated therefrom.” Even Johnny Carson has
something, to say about this issue: “The AMA announced
recently that the average lifespan has increased to 75
and ½ years...Unfortunately, you get the extra ½ year at
the end!”
It’s actually quite sad. Most people can look forward to a
decade or more of dysfunction at the end of their life.
It’s apparent that we now have the ability the change
that picture. How long it will take to be consolidated
into the present health care system is yet to be seen.
What is lacking most is research, with the intention of
moving proven alternative therapies into mainstream
health care while abandoning marginal ones. These
techniques of early intervention will generate
substantial savings in direct cost of care, health
insurance premiums, medication, chronic care and in many
other ways. Old age would be more productive, more
enjoyable and less apt to be plagued by health-induced
family income crises. People of all ages and incomes
could expect effective, individualized, relatively
noninvasive and unintimidating, state-of-the-art care.
Applied Kinesiology: The Short History of Age Old Therapies
Applied Kinesiology had its beginning, in 1964, when Dr.
George J. Goodheart made a discovery that was
fundamental to the manipulative practice of the healing
arts. He observed in a young man with a severe
“winging” of the shoulder blade (scapula) a dysfunction
of the serratus anterior muscle. Goodheart palpated
[i.e., put pressure on] very tender “nodules” on the
insertion of this muscle, eliminating the patient’s
problem. He found that some muscles could be
effectively treated in the same way [by pressure based
therapy] to improve posture.
Initially, the innovative development of Applied Kinesiology
was directed toward correcting postural imbalances
caused by poorly functioning, or “weak,” muscles.
Previous to this, the majority of practitioners directed
their attention toward the tight, or hypertonic,
muscle. Goodheart found that by treating the weak
muscle, changes in body posture could be observed almost
immediately. Originally, the main objective in
restoring normal function to the weak muscle was to
relieve the opposite tightness, improve posture, and
help support the spine, pelvis and other joints.
Although Goodheart was trained as a chiropractor, his
proficiency also included many other conservative
treatment procedures such as meridian therapy
(acupuncture), osteopathic cranial technique and
nutrition, with diet and lifestyle changes as part of
the holistic approach. More important was his detailed
knowledge of human anatomy, physiology and biochemistry,
as these formed a strong basis from which the
application of existing techniques could be employed
with more logic.
Goodheart also studied the findings of other investigators,
ultimately showing an interrelationship within not only
the body’s structure, but the chemical and mental
components as well.
He found, for example, that other researchers observed
various reflex points on the body that were related to
specific organs and glands. Goodheart observed that
these also correlated with specific weak muscles. If
the sartorius muscle was weak and the reflex point on
the abdomen for the adrenal gland was stimulated,
improved function of the sartorius muscle would often
follow. Through basic diagnostic tests, such as
postural blood pressure evaluation, and other clinical
signs and symptoms, improved adrenal function was
presumed. These and other findings demonstrated a
unique relationship between muscles, and organs and
glands not seen before. Subsequent investigation into
the work of others added more to the knowledge of
Applied Kinesiology. Eventually, nutrition and meridian
therapy, with its acupuncture points treated by digital
stimulation, were correlated with muscle weakness. The
hypothesis that muscles were related to other areas of
the body gave the A.K. doctor another important
diagnostic tool. Correlated with this massive
collection of information were other diagnostic
procedures, including blood and urine tests, x-ray, ECG,
etc.
While most patient complaints usually don’t stem from any
discernable disease, these individuals are not in robust
health. These so-called gray area problems were seen as
functional disturbances. Evaluating them required more
than the standard blood test and x-ray. What was now
developing was a method to diagnose functional illness.
The addition of proper muscle testing, as an aid in
diagnosis, became a great asset in helping the doctor
evaluate the functional status of the whole patient.
More importantly, its use in determining which specific
therapies – spinal adjusting, cranial technique,
acupressure and other therapeutic reflex points,
nutrition, etc. – are best for a given patient has
proved successful in clinical practice. Equipped with
all this information, the A.K. doctor now has a
“toolbox” of diagnostic and therapeutic devices from
which he may carefully choose to apply effective
interventions to a given patient.
The muscle testing procedures used in A.K., derived from
standard textbooks, serve to isolate specific muscles.
Through these diagnostic testing procedures, the
function of a patient can be evaluated, rather than
merely checking the power that the muscle can produce.
This is now referred to as “muscle testing as
functional neurology.” Improving muscle function
usually means finding the source of the problem being
caused to the muscle rather than just working on the
muscle itself.
Applied Kinesiology (AK) is
the best thing to ever happen to health care! If you
want a more technical answer to what is AK, please, by
all means, email me at
drchris@vibrantpotential.com and I'll give you that
answer but here is the bottom line for you. I've studied
AK for years now and through my skilled hands AK allows
me to ask your body what it needs! I mean it!
You can come in for an
examination and not have any idea what is wrong, I will
ask your body what it needs and it'll tell me. Simple
isn't it? It takes all the guessing out. Applied
Kinesiology is your path to less pain, better
performance, more energy, true health and
Vibrant Potential!
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