The Effects of Exercise on Cancerous Tumors, Cancer Patients and Cancer Survivors

There is convincing evidence that regular exercise reduces the risk of several major cancers. Research has shown that many major cancers are caused, at least in part, to a lack of sufficient physical activity. 

However, the medical community is still relatively unclear about whether exercise has a beneficial effect on a cancerous tumor once it starts to develop. Preliminary research suggests that exercise may abate the growth of cancerous tumors and possibly prevent their recurrence.         

Can Exercise Slow Down the Growth of Cancerous Tumors?

The answer is not a resounding “yes,” but there is compelling epidemiological data and experimental results  indicating that regular exercise may retard the growth of certain cancers.     

For example, researchers studied the effects of exercise on the development of sarcoma tumors in mice liver. There were five groups of mice in the study, seven mice in each group. The groups consisted of:

A.        Control group of mice
B.         Control group of mice with implanted sarcoma tumor cells
C.         Exercised trained mice whose exercise was terminated after implantation of sarcoma tumor cells
D.         Exercised trained mice who continued exercising for 18 days after implantation of sarcoma tumor cells
E.         Continuously exercised mice who never received sarcoma tumor cells

The exercised mice in Groups C and D had undergone swimming training one hour per day, five days a week for ten weeks before receiving the tumor cells. Groups C and D mice also continued to receive tumor cells after the ten-week training period.    

The size of the tumors in Group D mice, i.e., those exercised-trained mice that continued to exercise after receiving the tumor cells, was 50% smaller compared to the size of the tumors in Group B mice, the control group that did not exercise at all but received only tumor cells. In other words, the data proved that exercise had slowed down the growth of the tumors.  

Interestingly, the exercise that group C performed but did not continue after implantation of tumor cells had some beneficial effects on tumor development, but the difference was not statistically significant. 

The decrease in tumor size was more evident in the group D mice, or those that exercised during cancer development. The exact explanation for this is not yet known. Some researchers believe that the exercise during cancer development somehow altered the angiogenesis of the tumors, caused energy to be utilized differently or altered the immune system.

Whatever the physiological explanation, cancer patients should to talk to their oncologists to find out whether engaging in an exercise program is medically appropriate. Even with respect to mesothelioma, a rare soft tissue sarcoma, exercise may have a palliative effect, as shown by the mice liver study.

How Can Exercise Otherwise Aid in the Treatment of Cancer?

Beside the potentially positive effect that regular exercise has on the growth of cancerous tumors, exercise does much more for the general health and well-being of the cancer patient and the cancer survivor. 

Participation in an exercise program during cancer treatment can alleviate some of the side effects of cancer therapies, such as fatigue and nausea. Exercise has been shown to reduce these side effects in breast and prostate cancer patients by reducing toxicity levels in the body. 

Mental health benefits include reduced stress, increased self-worth and improved quality of life. There is also evidence that exercise diminishes clinical symptoms of depression.  Moreover, with respect to cancer survivors, exercise has been shown to help prevent a relapse of the disease by strengthening the immune system.

Consequently, many oncologists, cancer patients and cancer survivors acknowledge the need to engage in a structured exercise program as part of treatment for mesothelioma and other cancer treatment and prevention regimens. Physicians and patients should work together to design a professionally supervised exercise program that is tailored to the patient’s specific cancer, treatment type and fitness level.  

Further reading below:

http://www.mesothelioma.com/treatment/alternative/personal-fitness-and-training.htm     
http://www.webmd.com/cancer/features/exercise-cancer-patients

No Nonsense Muscle Building

Why do people put so nonsense into muscle building, no nonsense muscle building is the way to building big muscles. Thats right, take the no nonsense muscle building approach and you are on to a winner straight away. By no nonsense muscle building what do we mean? Well put simply it means taking no crap and weight lifting like you are meant too.

If you are wondering what you should do to carry out no nonsense muscle building then follow the next three steps to success.

Step 1)

Ignore all the lads throwing their body’s around and not lifting correctly, you know the guys, the ones who spend ages in front of the mirror and talking like they are world class weightlifters who no more than everyone else. These guys talk nonsense and need to be ignored.

Step 2)

Get a real weight lifting routine and stick to it religiously and carry it out correctly. This means strict form even if you lift less, your muscles with strengthens more quickly and your body will not get injured. The whole point of weight lifting is keeping focussed, not missing sessions and carrying out the sessions correctly.

Step 3)

Eat well and eat right. Dont eat less, you will never get bigger if you don’t feed your muscles, but don’t eat crap either. You need to eat the right foods and a lot of them to build superior muscles. Get an understanding of your body and what it needs then feed it up, eat your greens, eat proteins and the right types of carbs.

Following this no nonsense muscle building approach you will find your muscles will increase in weeks rather than months. I have personally trained with people who have nearly doubled their strength in three months simply by following the above.

Muscle Building for Skinny Guys

Everyone is different and because of a person’s genetic make up some people find it more difficult to bulk up with muscle than others, this is especially noticeable in muscle building for skinny guys.

Skinny guys fit into the Ectomorphic Somatotype; this is being thin and tall with little to no body fat. This generally means that the skinny guy can eat a lot and never puts on weight, a plus many would think...but not when muscle building is the achievement wanted.

Although muscle building for skinny guys is harder to achieve, it is not unachievable if the right routines are followed in exercise and nutrition.

So how do you achieve muscle building for skinny guys?

First rule is not to carry out cardio too much, if at all. While walking and general everyday exercise is fine, jumping on the treadmill or rowing machine is just going to keep eating up those calories and means you wont gain weight.

Second rule is to ensure you get a good strong weightlifting workout following something like the 5x5 workout, but also ensuring you get enough rest between workouts for your body to recouperate.

The final and most important rule is to eat, eat and eat. Muscle building is all about nutrition as well as working out. If you are someone who finds it hard to put on weight when eating how are you going to bulk up muscle without building up your calorific intake. The rule of thumb is to take your weight in pounds (times your kilogram weight by 2.2 to get this figure) and times this by 16 to 18 to achieve your required calorie intake while weight training properly. For a 170 pound male (77 kg male) this means eating between 2720 – 3065 calories a day.

There is no reason that muscle building for skinny guys should be so hard, it simply needs a change in training and nutrition to achieve the required results. As you start to eat more and train hard you should start to see differences in a matter of 12 weeks.

If you are a skinny guy who is muscle building and you follow the information above and gain results please come back and post to give confidence and support to others trying to achieve muscle building for skinny guys.