Exercise During and After Cancer Treatment

How can exercise help during and after treatment?

Exercise can help you maintain fitness, strength and the ability to manage everyday activities during cancer treatment and recovery. It may begin with a short walk, getting out of a chair more often or carefully selected exercises at home. The goal is to support the life you want to live, not prove how determined you are.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) recommends regular aerobic activity, such as walking, and resistance exercise to strengthen muscles during treatment aimed at curing cancer, adapted to the person and their treatment. Benefits include improvements in fitness, strength, fatigue and quality of life. You do not need to wait until treatment finishes to discuss a suitable plan.

People living with advanced cancer may benefit too. A 2024 trial found improved fatigue and quality of life with supervised, individualised exercise in selected people with metastatic breast cancer. It excluded unstable bone metastases. Your symptoms, treatment and bone stability need to guide what is safe.

Why can movement help when I am exhausted?

Cancer-related fatigue may not improve with sleep. Spending much of the day in bed or a chair can further reduce strength and stamina, making ordinary tasks more tiring. Manageable activity can help interrupt this cycle, alongside enough rest.

New or unusually severe tiredness needs assessment. A low red blood cell count (anaemia), infection, dehydration, pain, poor sleep or difficulty eating may contribute. Do not assume that every episode of exhaustion needs more exercise.

Start with what you can manage today

Walking when you have little energy

Someone who was active before diagnosis needs a different starting point from someone recovering after weeks in hospital. Discuss your starting level with your team, especially if you have become weaker or have been inactive.

If your team agrees that walking is safe, an example starting point might be 5 minutes at a comfortable pace, once or twice a day. If that is too much, try 1–2 minutes and rest, then repeat later if comfortable. These are examples to discuss, not targets everyone must reach.

Choose a level corridor or short route near home, with places to sit. Leave enough energy for the return journey. If you are much more exhausted later that day or the next morning, reduce the duration or pace. Increase gradually when the current amount feels manageable. Rest is part of the plan, not failure.

Do I need a step count or weekly target?

There is no universal chemotherapy step target, and 10,000 steps is not a requirement. Time spent moving may be more useful than counting steps. A tracker should help you notice your pattern, not pressure you to push through symptoms.

For people well enough to build towards it, around 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, with strengthening on two days, can be a longer-term goal. At a moderate pace, breathing is faster but you can still talk. During treatment or early recovery, a smaller amount may be appropriate. The target must never override safety or your individual plan.

Include strength, balance and flexibility

Walking helps endurance, but it does not meet every need. Resistance exercise makes muscles work against a load, such as body weight, a band or light weights. It helps preserve the strength needed to stand up, carry things and remain independent. Balance and flexibility work can support safer movement.

Suitable exercises may include rising from a firm chair with armrests, wall press-ups or light resistance-band exercises. Ask a physiotherapist to select and demonstrate them, particularly if you are weak or have bone disease, recent surgery or a treatment line.

Begin with light resistance and a small number of controlled repetitions. Breathe normally, avoid straining or holding your breath, and allow recovery between strength sessions. Supported or seated activity may be a better starting point than standing exercises.

Make movement safer if you feel unsteady

Some chemotherapy drugs can damage nerves, causing numbness, tingling or poorer balance. This is called peripheral neuropathy. Report stumbling, near-falls or new numbness early.

• Choose a flat, well-lit route. Avoid wet floors, loose rugs and uneven pavements.
• Wear secure, well-fitting footwear with good grip rather than loose slippers.
• If you are weak, unsteady or have a history of falls, have a capable support person beside you throughout the walk. If you become dizzy, sit down and seek advice before continuing.
• Ask a physiotherapist whether you need a walking stick or frame. It must fit correctly, and you and your companion should learn how to use it safely.
• If walking remains unsafe, ask about seated exercises or another supervised option. Do not practise unsupported balance exercises alone.

Having chemotherapy does not mean everyone needs constant supervision. The level of help depends on your balance, strength, symptoms and professional assessment.

Fit activity around chemotherapy and other treatment

There is no single best hour or fixed number of days after treatment that suits everyone. Choose a time when you usually feel comfortable and alert. On an infusion day, a short gentle walk may be reasonable if you feel well and the team agrees. Check with the nurse before walking while connected to an infusion, and ask for help if medicines make you sleepy or light-headed.

Shorten activity and take rests on more difficult days. On better days, gradually return towards your usual routine. Do not compare yourself with someone receiving a different regimen or try to make up for inactive days with one exhausting effort.

A simple activity and symptom diary can help identify your pattern. After surgery, follow the movement and lifting restrictions your team gives you. With radiotherapy or other medicines, ask how symptoms, skin changes and treatment effects should alter the plan.

When should the exercise plan change?

Ask for individual advice if you have low blood counts, heart or lung problems, recent surgery, a healing wound, substantial weight loss or a treatment line. Low platelets increase bleeding risk; anaemia can make activity more tiring. If your ability to fight infection is reduced, your team may advise avoiding crowded gyms. A general article cannot tell you which activities are safe for your blood-test results.

If cancer has spread to the bones

Bone metastases do not automatically mean complete inactivity. However, the location and stability of affected bones matter. Ask the oncology and rehabilitation team how much weight or pressure an affected bone can take, which movements to avoid and what alternatives are safe. Loading, impact, bending or twisting may need modification.

Do not use pain tolerance alone as proof that a bone is secure. New focal pain, difficulty bearing weight or loss of function needs review.

If you have lymphoedema or a treatment line

Lymphoedema, or swelling caused by a build-up of lymph fluid, does not automatically rule out exercise. Start gradually and get advice on loading, symptoms, movements affected by surgery and compression if prescribed.

A port or another central line is used to give treatment into a vein. Ask about the specific device, healing and planned activity. Swimming may be unsuitable with certain lines, wounds or infection risks. Do not assume that an activity is safe simply because it feels gentle.

When to stop and seek help

Stop activity and seek urgent assessment for chest pain, fainting, severe or unusual breathlessness, sudden weakness, or new severe back or bone pain. Do not push through an acute warning sign.

During cancer treatment, contact your cancer team immediately for a temperature of 37.5°C (99.5°F) or above, shaking chills, or feeling seriously unwell even without fever. Follow any lower temperature threshold your team has given you. If you cannot reach the team, go to the nearest emergency department and explain that you are receiving cancer treatment.

Tell the team about new muscle weakness

Steroids such as dexamethasone or prednisolone can sometimes weaken muscles, particularly with higher doses or prolonged use. This is called steroid-induced proximal myopathy: weakness in muscles near the centre of the body, commonly the thighs and hips, and sometimes the shoulders.

You may find it harder to get out of a chair, climb stairs or lift your arms, sometimes without much pain. Tell your team promptly; several conditions can cause similar symptoms.

Management may include reviewing the steroid prescription, physiotherapy and adequate nutrition. Carefully adapted strengthening may help, although evidence specifically for preventing steroid myopathy during chemotherapy is limited. Do not stop or reduce prescribed steroids yourself.

Yoga, mindfulness and relaxation

Gentle yoga adapted to your needs may help relaxation and wellbeing. For fatigue during treatment, its evidence is less certain than that for aerobic activity and strengthening. The 2024 ASCO–Society for Integrative Oncology guideline found insufficient evidence to recommend for or against yoga specifically for fatigue during treatment; it may help after treatment.

Choose an instructor familiar with cancer care. Chair-based or supported practice may suit you better than floor poses. Avoid hot yoga and strenuous or unsupported poses during periods of weakness. Bone involvement, surgery and lines may require further modifications.

Comfortable breathing, guided relaxation or mindfulness while seated can be part of your routine. Avoid forceful breathing or prolonged breath-holding. Structured mindfulness programmes can help fatigue during treatment; a few minutes of relaxation is different from a full programme and does not replace activity that builds endurance and strength.

Can exercise reduce the risk of cancer returning?

The evidence depends on the cancer, treatment setting and exercise programme. The 2025 CHALLENGE trial studied a structured, supported exercise programme over three years in people who had finished chemotherapy after colon cancer surgery.

At five years, about 80 in 100 people in the exercise group were alive without a recurrence or a new cancer, compared with about 74 in 100 given health-education materials alone. The exact figures were 80.3% and 73.9%, a difference of 6.4 percentage points. Muscle and joint problems were more frequent with exercise: 18.5% compared with 11.5%.

This does not prove that any unsupervised exercise prevents recurrence in every cancer, or that the same benefit occurs during chemotherapy. Exercise supports cancer care; it does not replace treatment. A person whose cancer returns has not failed or necessarily exercised too little.

Rebuild gradually after treatment

Recovery is not always a straight line. You may need to build activity gradually after treatment, with continued adjustments for neuropathy, ongoing hormone therapy, pain or other lasting effects. Start from your current ability rather than expecting an immediate return to your previous routine.

Food, fluids, sleep and symptom control belong in the same plan. Activity is harder when you are eating too little, losing muscle or struggling with nausea. A dietitian and physiotherapist may need to work together. Exercise should not become a reason to pursue intentional weight loss when nutrition is already a concern.

When to ask for rehabilitation support

Ask when weakness, balance, pain, restricted movement, lymphoedema or fatigue prevents ordinary activities. Rehabilitation can help during treatment, after surgery and in longer-term recovery; you do not have to wait until all treatment is over.

Tell the team what you want to regain: bathing independently, getting to the nearby shop, returning to work or playing with a child. These goals can make a plan more useful than a generic exercise target. Review the plan when your treatment or symptoms change.

Common questions

This information is for adults during and after cancer treatment. It does not replace an individual exercise or medical plan.

Related reading

• Nutrition during cancer treatment↗
• Chemotherapy neuropathy and how to manage numbness and tingling↗
• Cancer fatigue and practical ways to manage your day↗
• Lymphoedema after cancer treatment↗
• Supportive and holistic cancer care↗
• Recovery and follow-up after cancer treatment↗