Exercise is known to be important for patients for lots of reasons. If you are going to have an operation, the fitter you are, the faster you are likely to recover. Boosting your fitness for even just a few weeks beforehand can make a noticeable difference. For some treatments such as hormone therapy, exercise should be regarded as mandarory, because it has a significantly beneficial effect on many of the side effects. Exercise has been shown to slow cancer progression in some cases. Patients on Active Surveillance were shown to stay on Active Surveillance for longer before needing to switch to Active Treatment if they undertook regular exercise.

If you are going to embark on exercise and haven't done any for a while or have any underlying health conditions, it's important to check with your doctor first, and to take things very gently to start with.

There are a wide variety of exercises, and if you can find something you enjoy, that can make a big difference to how well you will do. Walking is a good exercise, and it's something you can start gently, and work your way up to longer and faster walks as you progress.

Some people find it a useful incentive to keep a record of their exercise sessions, and to set themselves targets, but don't overdo things, particularly when you are starting out.

Online Exercise Classes

Tessa Higgins, trained by Macmillan Cancer Support and CanReHab UK, offers group exercise classes over Zoom for cancer patients. Email Tessa, and Tessa will send you a questionnaire on your health and guidelines for the class. When you return the form, Tessa will call you to discuss your health and exercise needs, before sending you a Zoom link to join the classes. tlhiggins@hotmail.co.uk

The classes cost £20 per 4 weeks per person.
Sessions are 4pm Monday, and 2pm Wednesday, and Friday for an hour. You can attend as many as you wish.

Currently, most attendees are prostate cancer patients and their partners, but there are other cancer patients attending too.

Prostate Pedallers

Prostate Pedallers is a prostate cancer support group which is aiming at getting prostate cancer patients fit through cycling. It doesn't matter if you haven't cycled since you were a teenager, or don't even have a bike, Prostate Pedallers will bring you up to speed, and provide a great environment for men to talk openly with each other. They are based at Whipsnade/Ashridge, and so quite near to Dunstable.