Muscle power

ON a couch in kinesiologist Elaine Mills' consulting room at the York Clinic for Complementary Medicine, Richard Schumacher is lying flat on his back. The 28-year-old owner of Fulford Cycles is looking fit, tanned and glowing with health. So what's brought him here?

He has a habit, he admits ruefully, of crocking himself. The bike fanatic leads an active lifestyle that includes go-kart racing and mountain bike racing.

The latter, particularly, is hard on the body. "I do tend to damage my body quite quickly!" he grins. And kinesiology helps? No doubt about that at all, he says - it speeds up his recovery time from a host of minor injuries hugely.

"One thing I used to find with injuries was they just slow you down," he says. "You really should give your body time to repair itself. But I'm impatient. This really helps my body heal quicker, so I can get back out there!"

Fair enough. But what is kinesiology?

Before visiting Elaine, I'd done my research. Kinesiology, I'd learned, is a technique which combines Eastern ideas of energy pathways in the body (the basis of acupuncture) with a Western understanding of how muscles work.

Each muscle is 'linked', so the theory goes, to a particular organ in the body. By examining the muscles, therefore, kinesiologists claim to be able to assess the health of the organ that muscle is linked to. Then, by use of pressure on the various acupressure points in the body, they can adjust the flow of energy to that organ, restoring it to balance and you to good health.

Susan Clark, author of What Really Works: The Insider's Guide to Natural Health, puts it well.

"A kinesiologist is trained in anatomy and physiology so they know the muscles inside out," she says. "They're able to read your body by testing the various muscles for muscle weakness.

"They work on the idea that a strong muscle can resist a certain amount of pressure and that's a sign of good health. A weak muscle will give way under the same pressure. To a kinesiologist this means there is an imbalance that needs correcting."

In case mention of acupuncture has alarmed you, treatment of this imbalance is a gentle process. No sticking needles in - not even any of the sometimes uncomfortable manipulation used by chiropractors.

"We don't manipulate on the energy points," says Elaine. "We rub and push. It is less aggressive than chiropractic, and it is non-invasive."

Watching her at work on Richard is an odd experience. She asks him to raise an arm or a leg, then pushes against it with a firm, brisk movement. "That's strong," she says, when all is well and the arm or leg is able to resist her pressure. That, she explains, is an indication that the organ to which the muscle is linked is healthy, its energies in balance.

Then she tests a muscle that's not fully able to resist her pressure. "That's weak," she says. It's a muscle in Richard's upper back that's linked to the brain, and indicates that Richard's a little mentally tired or stressed. But most people are, Elaine tells me, after a day at work.

The treatment is so quick and brief it's hard to imagine it can be much help: a few moments of massaging and pressing pressure points near Richard's shoulder.

Richard insists, though, that it makes him feel better. Indeed, he describes the effect of kinesiology as "amazing".

He first went to Elaine a couple of years ago on the recommendation of someone else. Some time previously, he explains, he'd suffered a bad motorbike accident. It left him with a damaged hip and knee, excruciating pain, and difficulty walking.

Orthodox doctors dosed him up with more and more painkillers, without being able to sort out the underlying problem, he says.

"It got to the point where I was feeling more like a space cadet than a human being," he says.

Elaine gave him a full muscle test, established the problem areas, and applied pressure to various points in his body to realign energy balances.

The effect was almost immediate, Richard recalls. "It was no longer uncomfortable to walk or stand for long periods of time. I went back a couple of times more, to complete the recovery. And it was just great to get back to feeling how I used to feel. I had given up on orthodox medicine."

It wasn't just his back pain that Elaine cured. For years, he'd been a chronic hayfever sufferer. Within a short time of beginning his kinesiology sessions, he says, his hayfever had cleared up - and he's not had it since.

"It really is quite amazing what it has been able to do," he says.

Elaine herself is a quite recent convert. A few years ago the former PA to the Bishop of Middlesbrough was going through marriage problems. She tried counselling, then hypnotherapy to help her cope - and even trained as a hypnotherapist so she could treat herself.

Then, at a conference of hypnotherapists, she met John Logue - a one-time chartered engineer who had abandoned a 40-year career to teach and practice kinesiology full time.

"John worked on me: and I must admit I felt sick for a while afterwards," she says. "I went straight to bed, slept for about four hours, and woke up. And it was incredible, the energy I felt. I thought, wow! I'm going to do this."

So she did, training for two years part-time to achieve a diploma in applied kinesiology. She now teaches as well as practising.

The feeling of tiredness she experienced after that first session is not uncommon, Elaine admits. It's not surprising that patients should feel tired, she says. "You've rebalanced all the energy in your body, and your body is adjusting."

Richard agrees. "I do tend to feel tired after a session," he says. "But you really do notice the difference."

- Elaine, who is a registered kinesiologist and a member of the Academy of Systematic Kinesiology, one of two organisations which accredits practitioners, has been holding a series of kinesiology open days at the York Clinic for Complementary Medicine (formerly the Chien Clinic) at 296 Tadcaster Road. The next is on Saturday September 1, from 10am to 3pm. To find out more, contact the clinic on 01904 709688. Alternatively, the Association of Systematic Kinesiology on 020 8399 3215 or the Kinesiology Federation on 0870 011 3545 can supply you with details of accredited kinesiologists in your area.