"strain against" is correct and usable in written English.
It is a phrase that means to struggle or resist strongly. Example sentence: She felt her muscles strain against the weight of the heavy object.
Michael Nava's mysteries strain against these expectations.
In the women's dances, their breasts strain against their buttons.
For a minute or more, there is little movement as the combatants strain against each other.
Of course we strain against marriage; it's a bound canvas, a yoke.
There's something heart-rending about the way they strain against the bars.
Bodies turn and heave and leap and strain against a meaningless mantra of sound.
The result is a novel that seems to strain against its own lines of force.
By "Howtown," the third book of the series, Nava's Rios mysteries begin to strain against these expectations.
In Pune, meanwhile, the secular and the spiritual strain against each other.
Instead the vision roams over snaking, curling, spiky, wiry or delicate lines that strain against the frame.
In "Liquid Assets," a molten, pewter-colored disc seems to ripple and strain against invisible forces.
