Benefits of Exercise During and After Cancer Treatment

A few years ago, The American College of Sports Medicine along with the American Cancer Society teamed up to form a new certification for certified fitness professionals. The Cancer Exercise Trainer Certification is a certification that educates personal trainers on assessing and designing fitness programs for cancer patients and survivors based on the diagnosis and treatment of their illness. It has become clear to me that basic fitness programming is not readily available to patients and survivors. Education through oncologists, professional fitness resources and your local Cancer Exercise Trainer should make obvious the benefits of developing a fitness program that will help defeat or suppress symptoms associated with cancer treatments and enhance survivorship.

Key Benefits of Exercising during and after Cancer Treatments

1. Improved cardiovascular fitness
2. Increased muscular strength and endurance
3. Increased quality of life
4. Reduced fatigue
5. Increased feelings of happiness
6. Improved lymphatic function
7. Enhanced immune function
8. Decreased chance for cardiovascular disease
9. Improved bone density
10. Suppresses joint pain

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While other possible benefits from exercise may exist, research on exercise during and after cancer treatments is unfortunately limited. I look forward to keeping up with the latest studies and information on the relationship between exercise and cancer. I hope to develop and implement comprehensive fitness programming for patients and survivors by continuing to learn about the correlation between cancer and exercise and how you can control or eliminate symptoms from treatments and advocate prevention methods.

More to come!