Agatsu West Classics are articles I wrote in 2007 when I had just graduated from the Somatics Institute of Massage Therapy, and had just started BJJ. I wrote them to give a unique anatomical and pathophysiological point of view on the techniques I was learning, that inquisitive minds might better their understanding of "why" certain techniques worked the way they did, rather than just being satisfied with "how" to do them. Some were basic rehab and prehab concepts as well. This one deals with a neuromuscular function called 'reciprocal inhibition' and how it can be useful for stretching and cramps.
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I know that "Reciprocal Inhibition" sounds unnecessarily wordy, but bear with me, because this concept will help immensely in your tournament/fight prep and general well-being. It has to do with stretching and relaxing muscles, and is especially useful when a muscle is cramped, spasming, or is tight for some other reason and stretching it normally is too painful. The concept is based on one of the fundamental rules of muscles, that in every action there is an agonist muscle and an antagonist muscle, and that every movement of the body involves the agonist contracting (shortening) and at least one antagonist relaxing (lengthening). The easiest example is a bicep curl. When you contract your bicep and it shortens to lift the weight, the tricep, which is our antagonist in this case, is informed by the brain by way of proprioceptors to lengthen and relax. When the weight is let back down, the bicep lengthens and relaxes, and the tricep shortens.
When a muscle is lengthened through reciprocal inhibition, there is one fundamental differing factor from manually lengthening the muscle through stretching, and it has to do with how each type of lengthening is interpreted by the brain.
When a muscle is manually stretched, it is being pulled close to, or all the way to, its limit, which may be shortened if the muscle is currently in dysfunction. At this point, you may feel pain, which is the brain's way of telling you to stop lengthening the muscle because it is going to tear. As an added precaution, the brain stimulates a proprioceptive response telling the muscle to contract, in order to fight the stretch. If a muscle is shortened by a spasm, which is an uncontrolled and painful contraction, it's common sense that to do anything which would stimulate it to contract further is harmful and ineffective, so what can be done to help the muscle to lengthen in this situation?
This is where reciprocal inhibition comes in. Say you have a spasm in your hamstrings on your right leg, and its stuck about halfway in the range of motion. It hurts too much to extend the leg anymore, so it can't be stretched manually. You wouldn't want to try to bear through it either, because as I said before, your brain will fight you over it. So how do you get the brain and its fleet of proprioceptors on your side? The hamstrings are responsible for flexing the leg (bringing your heel to your butt), so their partner in reciprocal inhibition is the muscle group that does the opposite, which is the quadricep group.
So then, have a seat, and get a partner to hold your shin and secure it in place, and contract the quadriceps, trying to extend your leg, but with your partner bracing against you, so that you can't actually lengthen it any further and worsen the spasm. The muscles are working to extend the leg, but in order for the quadriceps to shorten and pull the leg into extension, their antagonist, the hamstrings, have to be able to lengthen. So now, even though the leg isn't actually extending, the brain detects that it's trying to, and therefore triggers the proprioceptors to tell the hamstring spindles to let down and relax, therefore making it easier after a few repititions of this process to gradually extend the leg with less and less pain.
Simple, isn't it? But there's one catch, the hamstrings/quadriceps pairing is easy enough to figure out, and other simple ones like the bicep/tricep pairing, but not all agonist/antagonist pairs are as easy to figure out if you haven't studied anatomy, so how do you know which muscle to contract in order to help another lengthen? With this in mind, I've put together a list of common muscles and their reciprocal partners, it's at the bottom. Remember, reciprocal inhibition works both ways. If one of these muscles is shortened and it hurts too much to stretch it, contract its partner.
**NOTE: This can also be thought of in terms of action. If you want to use RI on a muscle but don't know the name of it, think about what it does. If it hurts to extend your arm, then hold it in place and flex it.**
Triceps/Biceps
Hamstrings/Quadriceps
Forearm Flexors/Forearm Extensors
Upper Traps/Latissimus Dorsi
Deltoids/Latissimus Dorsi
Abdominals/Quadratus Lumborum (lower back)
Pectorals/Rhomboids (upper back)
Right side of neck/Left side of neck
Hip Flexors/Glutes
Hip Adductors (inner thigh)/Hip Abductors (outer thigh)
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