Exercises For Breast Cancer Patients

Being a breast cancer survivor myself,  and although everybody is different, I can relate to the side effects some treatments have and the effect treatment in general can have both mentally and physically on the human body.

It is important especially during treatment to keep the body moving. Movement can take any form from gentle yoga stretches, to a 5km run. It is important to listen to your body and what it needs at that point in time.

Below are some exercises that most breast cancer patients will be able to do throughout their treatment. Each journey is unique and different so it is best to consult your physician before commencing any new exercises.

The first exercise, diaphragmatic breathing has a number of benefits including, co-contraction of the abdominal muscles, increasing lung capacity, improve the efficiency of breathing and improve gas exchange and oxygenation.

• Diaphragm breathing – position yourself upright, imagine your spine is a row of building blocks stacked, one on top of the other, relax your shoulders and open up through your chest. Breathe in through your nose slowly to fill the bottom on your lungs and slowly breathe out through your mouth.  You can choose to place your hands at the bottom of your ribs as I have shown in the video, where you should be able to feel your lungs expand as you take a deep breathe in and collapse on the breath out.

The second exercise, helps to reduce any tightness in the neck muscles and to remind ourselves of our posture and how we should be supporting our body.

• The next exercise is shoulder shrugs, simply shrug both of your shoulders as comfortably as you can up towards your ears and then slowly down. Now to perform shoulder rolls, roll your shoulders up and forwards in a circle, 10 times. You may notice that closer towards the end of the 10 reps, you may find that you have more movement and it is a little easier to move than when you first started.  Now repeat this exercise in reverse by rolling your shoulders up and backwards in a circle.

Try and be aware of your positioning so that those building blocks stay stacked, your feet are hip width distance apart, and your knees are soft if standing. Imagine you have a double chin to avoid poking your chin out.

The third exercise is shoulder blade squeezes. This exercise helps open up through the chest and is a nice reminder to correct our posture. In our last blog post, Andy talked about the importance of stabilising joints and that carries over to what we’re doing with this. Too often, after surgery because it is quite restricted and tight across the chest area, there is a bit of resistance to opening up through the front of our chest. This exercise encourages this, and also co activates the back postural muscles to keep them active.

• Gently squeeze your shoulder blades down and back, to open up through the front of your chest. Hold this for 2-3 breaths then slowly release.

I hope these exercises can help you or someone you may know on their cancer journey. Although these exercises are targeted to breast cancer, they can be applied to anyone, especially desk workers or people who sit behind the wheel all day. Posture is something we should all be mindful of and I hope these 3 quick and simple exercises can help remind you to be aware of your own posture.

Written by:
Natasha Melacrinis / Physiotherapist