Should I Exercise With Lung Cancer?

Exercise during active treatment for lung cancer and long after should be a piece of your treatment puzzle. The American Lung Association reports that "moderate exercise during lung cancer treatment can improve fatigue, anxiety, stress, depression, self-esteem, cardiovascular fitness, muscle strength, gastrointestinal side effects and breathing." It can also help you build up your endurance, making you more resilient to the rigors of treatment, Michaels says.

"Sometimes we'll set people up with pulmonary rehabilitation if the doctor wants to increase their fitness prior to surgery," says Scott Marlow, a respiratory therapist at the Cleveland Clinic. Pulmonary rehab includes breathing, stretching and relaxation exercises and is more commonly used for patients with COPD. But it can have some applications for lung cancer patients who need to boost lung capacity. Rehabbing before surgery may speed recovery after surgery and reduce the length of time you'll be in the hospital.

How to Start

Before you begin exercising, speak with your doctor about any specific limitations you may have and what's recommended for your particular situation. There's lots of variation in types and stages of lung cancer and its treatment, with various side effects that could impact what you're able to do.

Once you're cleared for exercise, the key to getting started, especially if you weren't physically active prior to your diagnosis, is "start small, make a little goal and slowly build that up," Marlow says. "One of the things we have to be careful of is for someone to not all of the sudden throw themselves into something too quickly and wear themselves down by overdoing it. We want to make sure they're eating healthy, and we don't like to change too much all at once," he says.

To make sure she's starting her clients off in the right way, Michaels says she typically conducts a one-on-one fitness assessment "to see where they're at and to see if they have preexisting conditions" that might restrict which exercises are good options. For example, "someone who has arthritis and has had a hip replacement may need different exercise from someone who doesn't have any preexisting conditions. So, I like to do a full assessment on the person with lung cancer." Marlow adds that if you have heart disease as well, that can also alter what kinds of exercise would be best and how much you should be doing.

In addition, "everyone heals differently," so your program should be scalable for your needs, Michaels says. "Sometimes people have a partial lobe removed and they actually have reasonable endurance whereas someone else could have the same surgery and just be very deconditioned. Each person with lung cancer really needs, to some extent, an individualized program."

 

What to Do

The biggest issue for most people going through treatment for lung cancer is fatigue and a lack of endurance, Michaels says. Particularly if you've had a substantial portion of a lung removed, that can impede your ability to breathe freely, so starting small and progressing in the duration and intensity of exercise is the best way to ensure you don't hurt yourself.

You should also consider what you like to do for exercise. "Any type of exercise" is better than none, Michaels says, but as you get stronger, you'll have more options. Think about what you'd find fun, as you're more likely to stick with something you enjoy doing over the long-term. "The best exercise to do is the one that you like to do."

 

Source

 

Other Fitness articles

 

8 Most effective Exercises for Weight Loss!