What kinda light do you have? Metal Halide and florescent are good for vegetative growth because the blue spectrum promotes a good up and lanky growth a High Pressure Sodium is good for flowering cuz of the red spectrum and it promotes bushier growth. You can bend the branches down but i wouldnt cut anything, all cloneing and pinching for more splits should be done bfore you flower it cuz its all potential bud except for the main leaves (obviously).
you do have it backwords,
my light is a 600, and i already snapped the main stem over and my plants have all recoverd within 24 hours(supercroped), i have more shoots then i know what to do with.
you can supercrop once flowering has started as long as you are in your first couple weeks with out any issues, except mybe a extra week of flower wich is not a big deal.
of course the prefferd method is to do it while in vegg still but my plants were out growing my 7 foot tent and i had to make a decision fast before they got any older.
and it turned out perfect, all the bottom shoots are all standing up pushed threw the veggitation and now the canopy is fairly level
I also have a shorter strain in the front of the tent (9 of them) so supercroping the big plants down to there level helped with the issue of the light not reaching my shorter plants.
I think also as long as the main stem is still a little soft and not like wood yet you are OK
