Originally the terms ‘strong’ (Strong Muscle) and ‘weak’ (Weak Muscle) were used to describe whether or not a muscle held during testing. This is probably as a result of kinesiology’s origins in chiropractic, where muscle testing was undertaken to establish the physical integrity of muscles.
As many kinesiologists are using the muscle test as an Indicator Muscle (IM) (of the state of a meridian, stress, energy imbalances, etc.) using the term ‘weak’ is inappropriate: the muscle response is what it is, giving information about what is going on for the person and helping the practitioner establish what needs to be done for the client. Other terms are now more generally used to avoid this negative connotation, such as:
- Locked/unlocked
- On/off
- Facilitated/inhibited
- Muscle change
- Yes/no
Because there are two possible results to the muscle test (on/off), this is sometimes referred to as binary muscle testing.