Happy October!
Here’s our monthly newsletter with a little health and wellness knowledge, some Asheville happenings, and other random interesting stuff we’ve come across.
If you don’t want to receive these emails, just let us know and we’ll take you off the list.
In this newsletter: Invisible Loops, Goodhart’s Law, Erik Satie, GLP-1, LaZoom, Carving Turnips, and a Black Bear PT Event
For Your Body
1) Aaron provided free PT and recovery at the Table Rock Ultra last month. He had a great time working with that community. Here are 5 Takeaways from the event (see #1 if you’re a runner).
2) A study using data from more than 90,000 people, along with experiments in mice, suggests that sleep and exercise may help reduce some forms of mutation-driven inflammation associated with aging.
3) This might be the most important concept for patients to understand. Sometimes it’s the loop, not the event. It’s a balance of load and capacity. So maybe the answer isn’t solving a complex problem—it’s changing the loop.
4) As a parent, business owner, musician, exerciser, and homeowner, it can sometimes be quite challenging to find time to exercise. On the chaotic days, I try to find more NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis). So the question sometimes isn’t: Where can I find 30 minutes to exercise? The question becomes: Where can I make today slightly more physical?
5) EXERCISE OF THE MONTH: Easy Hamstring Exercises You Can Do at Home
The hamstrings are one of the most important muscles in the body
A loss of strength/stability with this muscle can destabilize the pelvis and result in a plethora of compensations
Use the 2nd video as a test—if you can’t do 30 seconds on each leg—you might be at risk
6) One more point about the loop above (#3): Sometimes our greatest PT “magic tricks” are simply identifying the invisible loops that keep causing someone’s injury. And many times, when people don’t get better, it’s because of an inability to find or change those loops.
For Your Mind
7) If you’re having trouble changing a behavior, change the environment.
8) Beware of Goodhart’s Law—the error that occurs when a measurement becomes the target.
I sometimes make this mistake as a clinician—I focus on ankle strength/mobility and temporarily forget about the true target—pain free hiking. Our schools do it with standardized testing—instead of education. Businesses do it with quarterly reports—instead of R&D and long-term growth. Runners do it with metrics on their watches—instead of building sustainable and pain-free volume.
9) Dr. Kelly Meyer, DACM, L.Ac. & Certified Acutonics Therapist will be teaching a 45 minute breathing class every Saturday of October at 9:00am at the Asheville Community Yoga. She also has a 2-hour breathing workshop on Monday October 10th from 5:30-7:30pm. Kelly is an intuitive and highly skilled practitioner, I highly recommend any of her offerings.
10) Constantly maximizing stimulation may produce the strange outcome of making the world feel less stimulating. Sometimes reducing input restores sensitivity.
Listen to the space in Gymnopédie No. 1 by Erik Satie. Lie down, close your eyes, and put it on repeat for 10 minutes. By observing the space, the notes become more powerful.
The same can be done in life.
For Your Health
11) The same basic mRNA technology that became famous during COVID may ultimately have an even more remarkable use—teaching someone’s immune system to recognize their own cancer.
12) More buzz on GLP-1 medications:
A massive real-world health study found that semaglutide use was associated with nearly 40% fewer severe asthma attacks.
Is it a longevity drug? This study found that older female mice given semaglutide lived about 100 days longer and maintained more physical and cognitive function than untreated mice.
However, it’s important to stay cautiously optimistic with new drugs.
In Hormone Replacement Therapy research, early observational studies suggested major cardiovascular benefits, but later randomized trials produced a much more complicated risk-benefit picture. That’s a useful reminder that early signals—especially observational ones—aren’t the same thing as long-term proof.
13) Is this a step closer to an alpha-gal syndrome cure? Alpha-gal syndrome can develop after certain tick bites and cause reactions to mammalian meat and other products. These ticks are in WNC.
Comedy
14) Laughing is good for your health.
We did the Lil’ Boogers LaZoom Comedy Tour with the kids and some friends. It was a blast. It was hilarious for both the adults and the kids.
My kids’ favorite joke:
What are two good reasons to wash your hands after you go to the bathroom?
Number 1 and number 2.
My favorite joke:
Why do gorillas have big nostrils?
Because they have big fingers.
If you haven’t been on a LaZoom Tour, we highly recommend it. You’ll laugh a lot, learn some local history, support a local business, and help keep Asheville weird. They have a Comedy Ghost Tour for October.
For Our Asheville Community
15) Asheville Art in the Park — October 3, 10 & 17
Pack Square becomes an outdoor art market featuring locally based professional artists working in glass, ceramics, wood, jewelry, painting, metal, and more. The event has generated more than $1 million in income for artists over its history.
16) Lovely Asheville Annual Fall Festival — October 10–11
Free in Pack Square, with multiple stages of R&B, jazz, Afrobeats, reggae, and more. This year’s theme centers on community renewal, with tributes to Roberta Flack and Nina Simone.
17) Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands — October 15–18
More than 100 Appalachian makers, live demonstrations, and work in wood, clay, fiber, metal, glass, and other traditional and contemporary crafts.
18) Billy Strings Halloween Run — October 29–31
Holding the key to our city and a guitar that barely catches its breath, Billy Strings returns for his epic Halloween residency.
19) Wicked Spooky 5K — October 31, 9 AM
Starts and finishes at Wicked Weed Funkatorium on the South Slope. Costumes are encouraged, there are prizes for the winners, and registration includes a post-race beer or NA drink while supporting MountainTrue.
20) Vote
It's election season. Whatever your politics, take a little time to research the candidates and measures on your ballot before Election Day.
Etc.
21) Ever wonder why certain bird calls captivate us? Scientists asked participants to score vocalizations across 123 European species. The findings showed that softer, higher-pitched tones and intricate songs tended to be rated most pleasantly—with the Eurasian blackbird coming out on top.
22) Before pumpkins, people carved terrifying faces into turnips. The jack-o’-lantern tradition likely grew out of Irish and Scottish customs involving carved root vegetables; pumpkins became the much easier American replacement after immigration brought the tradition across the Atlantic.
23) Tour the 14 real-world locations that gave iconic horror books their nightmares.
Patient Success Story
When Shoulder Pain Was Actually Coming From the Neck
A patient somewhat reluctantly came into physical therapy for an evaluation.
He had been told he needed six weeks of conservative care before his insurance would pay for a shoulder labral repair.
His pain was severe at the time and prevented him from even going to work. He was miserable and just wanted the surgery to get started so he could move forward in life.
During our initial conversation, the pattern didn’t sound like a typical shoulder injury.
Then during the physical evaluation, his shoulder strength, mobility, and testing were all normal.
The big clue came when he was asked to tilt his head to the right. This immediately intensified the sharp pain into his left shoulder. After ten repetitions tilting to the left, his pain decreased by 50%. Two more sets of 10 repetitions abolished the pain.
He was sent home with a very specific exercise program and a few postures to be aware of.
He returned to work the following week and no longer pursued the surgery.
While this is a dramatic example, it’s not rare to see shoulder pain that is really coming from the neck.
This is another reason to consider physical therapy before surgery.
Black Bear PT Event
Aaron will be setting up a table and performing free PT consultations, running analysis, and shoe recommendations at Jus’ Running on:
Thursday October 8th from 3pm-6pm
Jus’ Running is a locally owned shop that curates the best shoe selection in town.
I used to love running in my Brooks Ghosts. But they change their shoes every year and I was starting to develop some ITBand pain. I knew I needed new shoes.
I went into Jus’ Running, told them my foot type and shoe preference, and then they brought out a menu of about 4 or 5 different shoes to try.
I landed on the Topo Phantom 4 and have felt great since. A shoe I never would have looked at if I shopped on-line.
I’m not trying to sell you on Topo’s. I’m jus’ saying the store has some top tier shoes.
So if you need new shoes or have a PT question—come by October 8th.
Congratulations for making it to the bottom of the newsletter!
If you need any help with your pain, movement, or health, don’t hesitate to reach out.
Stay healthy,
Gaelyn and Aaron
Black Bear Physical Therapy
Email: bbearpt@gmail.com
Instagram: @bbearpt
Facebook: Black Bear PT