Interesting, some of the exercises are new to me. However I have yet to come across a resource that presents both exercises and references to scientific papers/resources proving that such and such technique is beneficial in medium to long-term. Mere "common sense" can be really backfiring when it comes to your spine. Does anyone know of such resource?
I haven't found any evidence that stretching in any form is effective over any longer term than a few minutes or hours, in my brief check on the subject.
The best I've found is a Cochrane review that says that specific neck stretches (NB as far as I can tell not those in the article) are effective in the intermediate term for relieving neck pain. A different review says that there is no evidence that stretching is effective in preventing injuries in runners.
The science, roughly speaking, doesn't exist. In fitness, the coverage of science is generally very poor, and the wisdom and experience of trainers is valued over the few, usually poorly-designed small-n papers that exist.
That's not true. Yes, there are plenty of areas that have limited research or small studies but overall there is more than enough to form scientifically based methods of fitness. The best trainers know this and base their methods on research and adjust as new research is published.
Perhaps this is what you meant and just didn't word it well.
That is not what I meant, I do not agree with you.
Are there some interesting studies? Yes, a few, and some trainers are aware of those. (I challenge you/anyone to provide a list of 5 great fitness papers! For funsies, I'm not saying it can't be done.)
However, in general, we're all flying seat of our pants.
I'd love to see some examples of the bedrock research that you believe trainers rely upon.
