Skip to content

Reciprocal inhibition

Definition

The contraction of one set of muscles initiates relaxation of the antagonistic muscles

One of the important roles of reciprocal inhibition is to overcome and inactivate the myotatic reflex, which would make voluntary agonistic muscle actions difficult if it was not supressed

Clinical understanding

A muscle stuck in a spasms can create a reflex inhibition in the antagonist muscle

Remedy of the spasms in the agonist will create a possibility of spontaneous strengthening of the antagonist