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The original article is titled: To Stretch or Not to Stretch? The Answer Is Elastic from the New York Times.

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.

I often make my own protein bars so that I know exactly what goes into them. It’s also less expensive this way! You can tailor it to nearly any protein/fat/carbohydrate combination you want, depending on your goals and how your body responds.

Mix up the following and cook for 10-20 minutes at 350 degrees. The pre-cooked bars should be thick and tough to mix. If it’s too wet, the final bars will be quiche-like, and if it’s too dry or you overcook, it can get hard or dry. Tailor al gusto!

The foundation:

• 3/4 cup nuts, blended
• 3/4 cups oatmeal, dry, blended
• 2-4 eggs or egg substitute
• vanilla protein powder

Now, for kicks, here are some ways to spice it up. Pick and choose, though I don’t recommend using all of these in the same batch:

• raisins, dried cranberries, or goji berries
• 3 tbs of peanut butter
• lots more peanut butter
• spirolina, just for some fun color
• chocolate chips
• meal replacement shake powder, for more calories

If you use this recipe for protein bars or meal replacement bars, let me know how it worked out.

I watched King Corn last night at the Coolidge Corner Theater. This is a must see for individuals, but also very important for fitness professionals. After all, if we are in the business of helping people exercise their way of fitness, and they think they’re eating the right foods for their goals - what happens if we realize that any achievements and changes are thwarted because of the “good” food we eat.

The alarm is being sounded on corn. The King Corn website has some fantastic and scary statistics about it in their faq and farm bill section.

One thing that is clear is that not all corn is equal. The corn that is massively produced today is not the corn that was once eaten. Looking at a history of corn is different than looking at what the corn industry says about corn. Can you see the bias? It’s interesting to look at this list and at the same time question the assumptions that lead to this type of thinking.

Here are a few interesting links about the issues:

• How the feds make bad-for-you food cheaper than healthful fare
• Wikipedia’s History of Corn
• Corn, It’s What’s Bad for you (by a grass-fed-beef farmer, so it is biased, but valuable for it’s insight)
• Michael Pollen, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma

There’s a lot more to research here, but this is a start.

Beth and I have created this: really, Beth is the show stopper here. I simply help with marketing, ideas, and I get to be the student.

From Beth: Our lifestyles are so diverse, many things occupy our lives everyday, career, significant others, children, family, bills, friends, holidays, errands, working out, eating well, energy, or lack of, environment, community, vacations AND sleep.  Where do you fit in?  How can you continue to manage everything on a daily basis and still have time to feel good about yourself, to know yourself, and to live life with love and energy? 

Beth Turgeon is launching http://www.holifit.net a personalized program for your specific needs.  Holifit is based on holistic health and integrates health, balance, nutrition, environment, fitness and yoga. It’s really an amazing program coming from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.