It is no secret that cancer treatments can leave the recipients exhausted and hardly having the strength to get out of bed, let alone to go do a workout. But most people also know how beneficial it is to keep muscles moving and blood flowing. In this post I’ll discuss a few of the exercises I was able to use even when I was totally beat.
For those that know me or have been reading previous posts, you know that staying as active as possible is something that I have always felt extremely passionate about. Most of the treatments are out of our control and are in the hands of our doctors, but there is still plenty that we can control on our own to help ourselves succeed in kicking cancer’s butt! It was always my goal to do everything in my power to not only survive, but to make sure that the cancer that tried to kill me – twice – would know that it messed with the wrong person. And a lot of that drive involved keeping myself moving.
Sometimes though, when treatments were especially tough, just moving felt like too much. Sometimes I just wanted to keep sitting or laying for the whole day!
With that in mind, I’d like to start by saying that the goal of this article is not to build muscle while going through cancer treatments. These exercises are meant to keep joints moving, prevent too much muscle atrophy from laying in bed too long, and keep blood flowing to avoid blood clots that occur from remaining still for too long.
Disclaimer: If any of these exercises are not right for you, don’t do them! I am not licensed in any way shape or form – I am only referencing exercises that helped me through my chemotherapy, radiation, and bone marrow transplant.
If you’ve read my other articles or my About Me section, you already know that my inpatient stay at the time of my initial diagnosis left me laying in bed so long that I could hardly walk by the time I got myself up. And on top of that, I was totally drained of energy from the chemotherapy!
Having a pool really helped me rehabilitate my muscles at that time, but don’t worry – none of the exercises in this post require equipment of any kind, other than perhaps a chair.
Some of these might not sound like much, but if you’ve ever been truly exhausted from cancer treatments, you already know that even walking to the bathroom can seem daunting.
Exercise #1: Chair squats
Don’t worry, this doesn’t actually need to be a squat. Oftentimes, when I was really beat, I would just work on sitting down in a chair and standing back up again a few times, take a break, and then keep doing it.
Exercise #2: Chair leg extensions
This one is just what it sounds like. I would sit in a chair and swing my foot out in front of me until my leg was totally straight, focusing on using the quad muscles between my knee and my hip. I’d repeat this a few times on each leg just to keep them moving.
Exercise #3:Quad extensions
The idea of this alternative to the chair leg extension was an added bonus of dating an Athletic Trainer. I probably wouldn’t have thought of it on my own, but given its simplicity, I used it frequently.
If the chair leg extensions were too much, or if I was laying in bed and really didn’t have the energy to sit up in a chair, I would do quad extensions. I would put my legs out straight, and try to flex those quad muscles that are located between the knee and the hip. If done correctly, the back of the knee should drive down into the bed and the heel of the foot should come up a little bit off the bed.
Exercise #4: Arm circles
Exactly how it sounds, this exercise is performed by sticking both arms straight out to the side and doing small circles clockwise, and then counterclockwise over and over until they feel worked.
Exercise #5: Shoulder “press”
I put quotes around the word “press” because you don’t actually have to press anything. When chemo is hitting hard that day, just moving the arms up and down very slow and controlled will get blood flowing to the arms.
Exercise #6: Soft tissue mobilization
This is less of an exercise, and more of a massage really! Massaging the muscles is extremely beneficial and really promotes quality blood flow. Especially when getting up and walking around is out of the question.
Exercise #7: Walking
I know I mentioned that these would all be exercises to do when I didn’t feel like getting up and moving, but I just couldn’t leave it off the list. Walking was by far the greatest thing for me when I was going through treatments. When I was first diagnosed, I would make sure I walked around my neighborhood almost every day to keep up my stamina. And during my bone marrow transplant, I walked around the transplant unit several times so that I wouldn’t be bedridden when I finally got to go home!
And, when I got out of my bone marrow transplant, Pokemon GO had just become a thing. So that certainly kept me walking! There are probably plenty of games just like that, that reward the player for walking!
I really hope that this post can help some of you out there that are feeling as exhausted as I was during treatments.
As always guys, please feel free to reach out to me on my contact page if you have any questions, tips of your own, topics you would like to see covered, or just feel like chatting to someone that’s been through it. I am always here for you.
-Alex
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Featured image is one of my own!