I have some NL/BB females just starting week 2 in flower.

I pulled the ~27" tips over and tied some twine to the tip and a 3/8" drive socket to the end of it which rests on the floor. Your plant bends over and the branches start to develop. I feel that it is OK to remove fan leaves that are shielding these new growing tops/tips. If a plant has 50 fan leaves, it should be fine losing one or two for the advantage of getting more growing tops. I have one plant with ~6 fat tops. The mainstem is about 30" and I only clipped about 6 or 7 fan leaves. Well worth the loss of those to gain the new tops.