One of the most physically fit athletes on the planet swears by doing stretches and not just exercises to promote robust physical well-being, strength, and stamina. Is this so, and what is the true mechanism making stretches so beneficial?

This is a quite important observation and is generally known throughout the arena of bodybuilding, athletic training, physical therapy, and the medical field of orthopedics. That does not mean it is well understood scientifically, only that, as a practical matter, doing stretches helps in many ways as a prelude to more demanding physical exertion in preparing the body for duty and causing a general, but mild, stimulation of the tissues which has notable benefits in lieu of exercise. So it is a perfect accompaniment to a training routine that spares the individual some extra physical stress and its demands in order to achieve a benefit. And this makes the overall workout more manageable and less difficult, and for the amateur, more user-friendly and likely to be engaged in with regularity. It acts as a gentle way of easing into things, so these are the prosaic descriptions and assumed consequences and benefits for using stretches as a part of a fitness program. What we see is a much deeper interplay of consciousness and its effects on the body cells and tissues. Setting the intention to stretch the muscles of the body will also engage with the connective tissue network, and that interplay will also interact with the skeletal system, all of which acts as a kind of dress rehearsal alerting the body it needs to be ready for duty and reminding it of its role in a kind of practice fashion. This has affects both physically and chemically, but beyond that, energetically, by engaging cellular consciousness to pay attention and participate in helping to orchestrate the unfolding operation and apply its own oversight and instructions to the tissues. And this provides an orchestration of full awareness and conscious interplay that will happen on all levels. The communication provided will bring everything into alignment fully, and all parts of the body involved with movement will be engaged with it, and both reminded of their role and instructed by the mind to engage in practice at a modest level of exertion that accomplishes an effective utilization of the entire interplay of mind and body. For the physicality as a dress rehearsal for more demanding exertions, it prepares the tissues physiologically by increasing blood flow and oxygenation through a modest demand, and this begins to unleash biochemical and hormonal systems to ramp up delivery of nutrients and signal for the readiness of tissue repair and replacement pathways so they can be called on more quickly should there be excess exertion that is damaging and needs to be repaired. This goes a long way towards preventing injury during exercise and ultimately allows a person to do more in the way of building the body up, because the overall limits will expand in what is tolerable with safety. And this is what athletes in particular need to have—an edge over others in getting themselves into fighting trim in a way that gives them greater strength and stamina to compete with others effectively. It is the strength of the foundation, first and foremost, that allows greater muscle exertion to do everything faster and better. The foundational elements of the body respond to the exertion more by simple utilization than the magnitude of the exerted effort underway. So stretches alone do much to enhance repair systems and act as a kind of ongoing rejuvenation that will add to muscle growth and strength just as effectively as putting the muscles to work more vigorously, as with weightlifting and doing movements causing exertion, and challenge the muscles as in doing push-ups, knee bends, and so forth. So stretching is a quite valuable adjunct for health and well-being maintenance that most people can do unless there is a painful health condition compromising them that would force them to proceed too gingerly.