Is stretching necessary if nothing feels tight and movement quality is good? Would it be beneficial to do it anyways just as a safeguard?
I do allot of mobility work but not stretching per se.
I still don't have time to that lengthy missive, but I will expand a little on what
@Anna C said.
There is a continuum of muscle tension. Many people live exclusively in the middle: they cannot "do" maximum muscle tension, nor can they "do" deep muscle relaxation. They cannot "do" much except their own activities of daily living.
Learning to move the dial from the center is important. Here at StrongFirst, our focus is on learning to move the dial to the right (in my little mental image), towards more, better, coordinated, controlled muscle tension. What sometimes gets overlooked in our discussion is the fact that moving the dial in either direction teaches the body an important, albeit obvious, lesson, namely, "Hey, you can move the dial from the center." When you've learned you can move the dial from the center, it's not so hard to figure out that if you can move it one way, you can also learn to move it the other way. That "other way" is true muscle relaxation, which manifests itself as flexibility.
The way to make the "move the dial to one side and then the other" most effective, the way to become flexible in a position you can't currently achieve, is to get as close as you can get, move - because moving requires strength - and then relax.
That's a too-short explanation to serve as instructions, but that's it in a nutshell.
Yes, you should stretch.
-S-