Differences Between Antagonist And Agonist Muscles

Antagonist and agonist muscles work in pairs. This is called antagonistic pairs. As one muscle contracts, the other relaxes. An antagonistic pair is the biceps and triceps which contract then the triceps relax while the biceps contracts to lift the arm.
Synergists muscles act on movable joints and help cancel out extra motion from the agonists. This ensures that the force that is created works within the desired plane of motion. Muscle fibres are only able to contract up to 40% of their fully stretched length. This constraint affects all muscles and those that move over several joints might not be able to shorten sufficiently to be able to produce the full range of movement of all of them. Also, the opposing muscles might not be able to stretch