Use an anchor in opposite direction that you bend the plant down. This will reduce stress on roots. Also, try to bend and shape plant as you want before restraining plant. There should not be great resistance.
Can bend between the axillary growth, or you can bend so one half remains and cut off the limbs growing into the ground. You will have enough, regardless. Bending between will give more options - prune off weaker growth or thin out densely populated areas. You will cut off a lot more this way, and that may take longer with more wasted resources possible in some situations.
Easy stuff - manipulating a plant. Use 'apical dominance' to impact resulting canopy. Bend down taller branches until others catch up. Same concepts behind LST. You bend the plant over to creat an even length of trunk. This provides a more even distribution of resource and all the axillary growth along this portion start growing out faily evenly.