 While this notion is now understood to be incomplete, the clinical mechanism of Reflexive Antagonism continues to be useful in Physical Therapy.Reciprocal inhibition is a synonym.Muscle energy techniques that use reflexive antagonism, such as rapid de-afferentation techniques, are medical guideline techniques and protocols that make use of reflexive pathways and reciprocal inhibition as a means of switching off inflammation, pain, and protective spasm for entire synergistic muscle groups or singular muscles and soft tissue structures.