WHOOP Partners with Battle Cancer to Support Cancer Survivors with a Fully Funded Life-Changing Program

On World Cancer Prevention Day, global fitness fundraising event organisation, Battle Cancer, and world-leading human performance company, WHOOP, announce they have joined forces to help eradicate medical and fitness stigmas around exercise post-cancer through The Battle Cancer Program – a free, 12-week program starting in March 2022 at various locations across the UK, USA, Germany, Dubai, and Brazil. The Program will integrate WHOOP™ wearable technology to deliver data-driven interventions to support individually optimised programming results.

The Battle Cancer Program (BCP): Post cancer treatment has traditionally focused on clinical interventions and missed the host of research backed concurrent benefits offered by lifestyle interventions and the biological impact of movement and exercise on recovery*.

The aim of the 12-week program is to engage people who have experienced cancer in a meaningful, structured, and progressive exercise rehabilitation program, supported by medical research and evidence, that builds physical confidence and independence, and a belief in a better quality of life and health for the future. The environments that house the BCP are inspiring and inclusive, and most importantly non-medical.

The BCP adheres to the best practice in terms of physical rehabilitation yet is distinctly different to the common means of assisted recovery through exercise. Firstly, the BCP is housed within the world’s best gym facilities and delivered by the most highly skilled and experienced fitness professionals operating within the global sector. Secondly, the focus of the exercise sessions is to instil life-long compliance with exercise as a behaviour, and not merely as a means of short-term intervention. The BCP is a new beginning for those who choose to enrol and the first step towards believing and achieving new standards of health and fitness.

Beyond the physical results, the program also provides a deeply connected community for individuals who often find themselves isolated and marginalised; ultimately building confidence in their bodies and exercising. Key is the reassurance provided for partakers over common misconceptions from doctors PTs and other fitness and medical professionals, who often treat patients as too fragile, prolonging their recovery to full health.

In 2021 Battle Cancer ran their first ever program which saw outstanding results across the board on strength movements they were tested on, including average increases of:

Þ 64% increase in back squat

Þ 57% increase in deadlift

Þ 130% increase in strict press

Þ The compliance rate was also highly positive with 84% of people completing the full 12 weeks

Now in 2022 with WHOOP onboard, Battle Cancer hopes to utilise the power of 24-hour biometric data to enhance and optimise results for participants.

About the role of WHOOP Each participant will wear a WHOOP 4.0, a wearable device which monitors sleep, recovery and daily effort around the clock, during the entirety of the training cycle, offering real-time, quantitative personalised data. This will allow participants to avoid second guessing how they feel and encourage them to train if their recovery score, calculated from the previous 24 hours data including HRV, resting heart rate and sleep performance, is satisfactory.

Strain is another key feature, unique to WHOOP, which will be integral to participants approach to training. The value measures the cumulative cardiovascular load a participant’s body takes on in 24 hours, as well as giving a score for individual activities and includes data from internal stressors.

Participants and coaches from The Battle Cancer Program will review their data to monitor how members respond to interventions, crucially the 24hr biometric feedback provides insights not only during the 1-hour gym session, but also in the other 23hrs of the day when adaptation is occurring.

WHOOP will also be providing partakers with a playbook on their top findings from an extensive library of research and data: this will offer insights such as how to sleep well and improve HRV, having a knock-on effect of getting the most from training and achieving the ultimate goal of optimal recovery.

Scott Britton, founder of Battle Cancer states ” This partnership with WHOOP allows Battle Cancer to do something truly wonderful in the next step of post cancer recovery, to truly put the recovery back into the hands of the participant and allow people to monitor and learn their own bodies whilst taking part in the program is the most exciting thing to me. To empower the person, community and wider fitness industry is in the heart of everything we try and do at Battle Cancer and WHOOP will help us take this to the next level. We will also have a mountain of data to convince those institutions and industries that life after cancer can be so much more, we can push the participants so much more and make so much more of a world-wide impact.”

Dr. Colin Robertson, Director of Science and Research at The Battle Cancer Program comments “Working with WHOOP gives us an invaluable insight to monitoring those changes that matter most. Our programming is all about making meaningful changes that will enhance and galvanise people’s health and fitness. By equipping our clients and coaches with WHOOP technology we will be able to track those changes that shape the futures of the people we support.”

Briain Curtin, International Marketing Director at WHOOP says “WHOOP is thrilled to be in partnership with Battle Cancer in 2022, across the Battle Cancer Program and Events. Our hope is that WHOOP will add to the great work being done by the Battle Cancer team, providing key data, research and support to all involved.”