Cancer-specialist personal trainer, Becky, recently attended an international exercise oncology conference. Here, she shares the key takeaways, and how she hopes the sector will move forward…
Last month, the first International Society of Exercise Oncology (ISEO) conference took place in Heidelberg, Germany. I’m a specialist personal trainer who happens to have a background in event management for scientific meetings, so this was both an exciting and intriguing experience for me.
Over two days, there were a variety of keynote talks, oral presentations, poster presentations, and networking opportunities. It was a packed and high-quality agenda, so choosing my top takeaways to share here has been a challenge! These are the key messages I’d like to share with those working within cancer care, exercise oncology, and the fitness industry…
ISEO 2026: a new frontier, and an evolved message
Very briefly, and bluntly, ISEO has been created due to physical activity persistently being excluded from oncology conference agendas. I said what I said, and so did current ISEO President, Kathryn Schmitz. When she was President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO – widely regarded as the international association for clinical oncology, and the conference that everyone who’s anyone goes to), Katie made exercise her presidential priority. Huge steps were taken… and then rolled back by her successors. What did Katie do next? Founded ISEO.
Throughout the 2026 ISEO conference, several speakers shared a clear message: our sector needs to move forward. Our key message during the last five to ten years has been that exercise is both safe and recommended for cancer patients and survivors. The problem we have now come across is that, in simplifying the message to share it more easily, we have over-simplified it to the point that it is being disregarded. The message just isn’t good enough, and it’s time to change it again.
We aren’t the only sector of the fitness industry to do this – in the last year, I’ve heard many people say that the classic, “eat less, move more” message isn’t good enough (again, an oversimplification that people are afraid to ask more about). Exercise and nutrition are only straightforward when you have the knowledge to understand them.
What we need to be sharing is this: exercise is safe and recommended for cancer patients and survivors, and in order to benefit from it, they must be provided with personalised guidance as standard of care.
Exercise oncology research priorities
As I mentioned above, we’re now past the point of knowing that exercise is both safe and effective. There have now been several long-term, high-participation trials that prove this point. Some will argue that we still need to be more specific, and ensure that this evidence base exists across all cancer subtypes; I’d counter that you’re waiting for a day that won’t arrive, and patients and survivors will miss out in the meantime. Bluntly – there comes a time when you just have to do the thing.
What I’m about to say could prove more controversial: in my opinion, we don’t need more studies about the impact of physical activity on fatigue. Yes, treatment-induced fatigue is a big challenge for many patients. It’s also an area that has already received and continues to receive a lot of research attention.
Areas that continue to be under-studied, and are likely to have significant patient benefit are: how physical activity can improve treatment-induced peripheral neuropathy; how to improve adherence to exercise programming; ensuring that behaviour change continues long-term; and implementation of physical activity as standard of care.
Who we need to engage in exercise oncology
When you’re looking to change the world, one of the most important places to start is who you’re not currently reaching. Many of us at the ISEO conference were aware that we were the choir who was being preached to – we’re already converted and on-message. And we need more support.
Disappointingly (because I have been saying this for at least eight years already), the main demographic we still need to convince, and whose allyship will help enormously, is oncologists and surgeons. To patients, they are generally the voice of authority; their word is law, and so when they say that something needs to be done, it tends to happen. Their power will help significantly.
Equally, we need support from the other end of the food chain: when I completed my cancer specialist training in 2021, the field in terms of fitness professionals was regarded as fast-growing, and it still is. Yet there is plenty of space for more of us. Fitness professionals are, after all, the ones who will be coaching patients and survivors out in the community. They are the ones delivering the product that the research proves is effective. And they therefore need to be part of the conversation too.
Dissemination of information regarding cancer and exercise
I heard some great suggestions for how to engage those who aren’t yet part of our group. One clinician mentioned a journal club that her team hosts regularly. Each person brings an article to share, and this is what broadens their horizons and gets people interested.
Sharing what we do at networking events also matters – earlier this year, I educated a room full of fitness professionals on the fact that my specialist qualification exists. If we don’t know about something, we can’t engage with it, so whilst I thought that this was very basic knowledge, it was still critical to impart.
ISEO 2028 – where will we be next time?
Whilst the geographic location of the next ISEO conference (to be held in 2028) is to be confirmed, we do know what our hopes and priorities are. I travelled to the conference thinking there would perhaps be 100 delegates. The organisers later share that they had hoped for 200.
In attendance there were 469 of us.
The bar is high, but it absolutely can go higher. I hope that there will be double that number in 2028. I also hope that there will be more medics, and more fitness professionals – I will be spending the next two years inviting everyone I know. And – possibly – preparing an abstract submission of my own…
You can find out more about ISEO here, or by emailing me
