RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Exercise load monitoring: integrated approaches to advance the individualisation of exercise oncology
JF BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine
JO BMJ OPEN SP EX MED
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP e001134
DO 10.1136/bmjsem-2021-001134
VO 7
IS 3
A1 Stephen J Carter
A1 Marissa N Baranauskas
A1 Tarah J Ballinger
A1 Laura Q Rogers
A1 Kathy D Miller
A1 Dustin C Nabhan
YR 2021
UL http://bmjopensem.bmj.com/content/7/3/e001134.abstract
AB Whether slowing disease progression or combatting the ills of advancing age, the extensive utility of exercise training has contributed to the outright declaration by the American College of Sports Medicine that ‘exercise is medicine’. Consistent with general framework of adaptation, the advantages of exercise training are indiscriminate—benefitting even the most susceptible clinical populations. Still, the benefit of exercise training presupposes healthy adaptation wherein progressive overload matches sufficient recovery. Indeed, a difference exists between healthy adaptation and non-functional over-reaching (ie, when internal/external load exceeds recovery capacity)—a difference that may be blurred by cancer treatment and/or comorbidity. Recent advances in smartwatches make them ideally suited to non-invasively monitor the physiological stresses to exercise training. Resolving whether individuals are successfully adapting to exercise training via load monitoring bears clinical and practical relevance. While behaviour-change research aims to identify positive constructs of exercise adherence, further attention is needed to uncover how to optimise exercise prescription among cancer populations. Herein, we briefly discuss the constituents of exercise load monitoring, present examples of internal and external load and consider how such practices can be applied to cancer populations.