Welcome to the Survivor Strong Strength Training Team
We would like to invite you to work with the Survivor Strong Strength Training Team to build some muscles, improve your metabolic health and consider a few lifestyle choices that could make your body less hospitable to cancer and other chronic diseases. We want to help you Build Muscle For Life.
Our Mission
Fighting the war on Sarcopenia by Building Muscle for Life.
The Survivor Strong program is a guided online strength training program for cancer treatment recovery, cancer recurrence risk reduction and cancer prevention. We aim to help people increase lean muscle mass and promote a healthy lifestyle using exercise, diet, sleep optimization, and stress reduction. We have a fun and supportive online community of expert level coaches and like minded individuals ready to help.
In the preventive setting exercise decreases the risk of getting many types of types of cancer including colon, esophagus, breast, endometrial, kidney, stomach and bladder cancer. After a diagnosis, exercise lowers the risk of recurrence in several cancers: the strongest evidence has been shown in breast, colon and prostate cancer.
Exercise helps cancer patients even if they don’t lose weight. Exercise is a powerful tool to improve metabolic fitness. What does that mean? Aerobic exercise and strength training lower the chemicals in the body such as insulin that have been show to increase the risk of recurrence. The same mechanisms that decrease the risk of cancer and cancer recurrence also help to lower the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and the metabolic syndrome.
Strength training exercise lowers the risk and severity of lymphedema (swelling in the arm from lymph node removal) in breast cancer patients. Aerobic exercise lowers anxiety and depression. Both types of exercise decrease cancer related fatigue, improve quality of life, improve sleep, and bone health.
We have expert coaches standing by to support you regardless of your exercise experience or fitness level.
Coach Dave Spitz, International Olympic Weightlifting Coach and Dr. Natalie Marshall, Breast Medical Oncologist and Faculty Scholar in the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at UCSF.
Introduction video and exercise videos:
“We want your muscles to be in charge, not your fat tissue.”
Natalie Marshall, M.D - Medical Oncologist
What is Sarcopenia?
It is low muscle mass and is associated with increased mortality. Sarcopenia happens with aging and cancer patients with sarcopenia have a higher mortality rate. Strength training is the best way to increase muscle mass and fight sarcopenia. It also improves muscle strength that can be used to do aerobic exercise.
It is not about how you look or if your body mass index is low. It is about if you are moving or not and how much muscle mass you have in relation to how much fat tissue.
Strength training helps people with coordination, balance, bone strength, flexibility, and it also makes people less likely to fall.
See why Coach Dave Spitz, Olympic Weightlifting Coach and Survivor Strong Co-Founder, and Dr. Marshall developed the Survivor Strong Strength Training Program. Coach Spitz goes into more detail about the program here:
guidelines for physical activity
Many exercise experts recommend the following exercise structure for healthy people and for cancer survivors.
150 minutes of moderate intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity aerobic activity and a minimum of two sessions a week of strength training.
These are goals to work towards.
Do not feel discouraged if you are unable to complete the above amounts of exercise.
Never do nothing!!!
Even 5 minutes a day is helpful.
The highest benefit is seen in the person who goes from doing nothing to doing something.
Moderate exercise is when you can talk but not sing , such as brisk walking or moderate paced bike riding. Intense exercise is when you cannot carry on a normal conversation while exercising, such as while running or swimming.
The Survivor Strong Strength Training Team programming provides three days a week of strength training programming that can be done with only your body weight or weight can be added as you get stronger. It also provides two days a week of mobility/yoga/ stress reduction programs as well as a way of tracking the minutes of your aerobic exercise per day. All exercises can be scaled to different fitness levels.
If you choose to join the program we encourage you to track everything you do in the Survivor Strong App so you will be able to see your progress and so you can be encouraged by your accomplishments in building strength and endurance.
We want to be your partners in health and motivate you to Build Muscle For Life!
If you are interested in using Survivor Strong for a cancer survivorship program contact Natalie.Marshall@ucsf.edu.
survivor Strong STRENGTH TRAINING TEAM
Dr. Natalie Marshall
Dr. Natalie Marshall is a board-certified Medical Oncologist and Breast Cancer specialist. She is the Medical Director of the UCSF Cancer Center in Berkeley, CA. Dr. Marshall in intensely interested in the effect of lifestyle modifications on quality of life and recurrence risk reduction in cancer patients and in the prevention of cancer in unaffected individuals. It motivated her to approach Dave Spitz to design a strength training program for risk reduction and prevention. She trains at California Strength for Olympic weightlifting in the master’s division and has seen firsthand the excellent coaching and programming that is offered to athletes of all types and ages. Survivor Strong is that skill translated for patients so access to this important treatment is available to anyone regardless of place of residence, financial resources, or fitness level.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
Medical School: University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas
Internship and Residency in Internal Medicine: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Fellowship in Medical Oncology: Yale New Haven Hospital, New Haven, Connecticut
Coach David Spitz
Dave Spitz is the owner and head strength and conditioning coach of California Strength, a facility in San Ramon, CA that specializes in human performance. He is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) and holds the distinction of a USA Weightlifting Senior International Coach. Since 2008, California Strength has produced numerous NFL Athletes, world class Olympic weightlifters and helped people around the world achieve their goals through various online programs. His experience and knowledge in human performance has helped guide the development of the Survivor Strong program.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
University of Southern California
Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist
USA Weightlifting Senior International Coach
Scott Esparza, CSCS
Scott was born and raised in Northern California. He attended the University of California, Berkeley where he earned his undergraduate degree in Negotiation & Conflict Resolution while throwing for the UC Berkeley Track & Field team. In addition to Survivor Strong, Scott manages operations and marketing for California Strength. He brings his expertise as a Certified Strength & Conditioning Coach and his passion for helping others achieve their potential to the Survivor Strong platform as a coach in our online community.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
University of California Berkeley
Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist
Regan Fedric, CES
Regan Fedric, certified Cancer and Exercise Specialist, delivers her life-long mission of bridging fitness and medicine as Program Director of Sunflower Wellness. In 2002, Regan co-developed the IMPACT program (Integrating Medical Professionals and Certified Trainers), which later became Sunflower Wellness.
Regan has amassed thousands of clinical hours and is part of an integrative team that provides compassionate and progressive care to cancer patients at Smith Integrative Oncology, UCSF Helen Diller Cancer Center, Marin Specialty Care, and Kaiser Permanente. A gifted athlete, Regan played Division I basketball at the University of Memphis, where she earned a B.S. in Exercise Physiology with a minor in Biology. At Lebonheur Medical Center YMCA, she developed the Eagle’s Circle program for children with asthma and/or obesity, and also worked in their cardiac rehabilitation program.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
University of Memphis
Certified Cancer and Exercise Specialist
Natalie. Marshall @ucsf.edu - Contact for survivorship programs and teams