Personally, I am still trying to determine the value of this. A couple of thoughts have crossed my mind. 1. There is a process in muscle contraction called reciprocal innervation. This is when the antagonist muscle is inhibited so that the agonist can contract with maximum efficiency. This is one of the reasons that I encourage players to stay relaxed so that the muscles that need to fire quickly can do so with little resistance. It seems that if you are pinching your shoulder blades together that you are contracting in a direction oppositional to where you need to go. 2. Can we achieve proper load and positioning by placing the hands in a strong position without flexing the muscles of the back?
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