The original article is titled:
Unfortunately, the article does not provide any substantial information. It’s not their fault, however, because the entire industry suffers from label confusion. Without being clear about what one means by a term like stretching, a writer can pretend to say something without actually saying anything. Like I’m doing, so I’ll change directions right now.
The body is smart. Really smart. Injuries happen when there is a breakdown, such as more force than a joint or muscle tissue can handle. We prevent injuries by staying within safe limits, and if we want to push our limits, we need to expand our capabilities. Most people argue whether or not one should “stretch” to expand our joint’s abilities, usually measured by “range of motion” or ROM. These people are missing the point.
If you want to prep a car to move faster or go on a road trip, you would want to tune it up, wouldn’t you? Not loosen the bolts…
If you wanted to cook a dinner, you’d turn on the stove to the appropriate temperature, not turn it off…
What most people think of as stretching is actually passive stretching, or lengthening a muscle past it’s normal working length and holding. In fact, that’s a good way to relax, calm the nervous system, and simply feel good. There are lots of benefits to this, but preventing injury is not one of them. The body’s intelligence hides this error.
Yes, muscle tissue needs to be supple, flexible, movable, pliable, etc. Yet they need to be strong and they need to be on. Joints should have the range of motion they need as dictated by the needs of the movement. One way you can test this is by asking your muscles to get you to that ROM. In other words, lift your leg straight up with your hip’s strength. All the passive hamstring stretching in the world will only weaken and destabilize your hip joint if the quads/hip flexors and all the other hip stabilizers aren’t properly strengthened. In other words, most people are doing the wrong thing, at the wrong time, and can’t tell because their body is too smart. It’s like a parent who constantly cleans up after his child’s mess. The child never realizes what he’s doing.
A runner doing a one-legged quad stretch with his foot up to his glute is a great example of a stretch that feels good but has nothing to do with the movement they think they’re preparing for. It’s just that the body is smart and covers up their error. What they’re actually doing is weakening and turning off the propriocepters that the knee and hip needs to adequately handle all the forces they’re about to take on. The runner would be much better served by turning on muscles, activating them through the needed range of motion, getting blood flow through movement. Again…the body is smart and the passive stretch does feel good.
In sort, to paraphrase Timothy Leary, “tune up, drop in.” How you do it is up to you and becomes just about obvious when you think about the movement you want to train, what the muscles are doing in all directions and what they need to do.