Hello,
preface: My dad (63years old) lost a lot of weight (from 150kg to about 90kg in a little more than a year) by first reducing calorie intake and then starting to cycle and until shortly before the surgery rode his bike once a day for 20-40km. This happened a couple of years ago. He is of course super proud of it. About a little more than one month ago he was diagnosed with kidney cancer which got taken out mid february. He lost half his kidney and they used a da vinci robot for the surgery. The histology returned that it is a clear cell renal cell carcinoma and most likely it hasn’t spread. He’s taking walks now (up to about 6km per day), but they exhaust him quite a lot. However, he really wants to get back into his old form as soon as possible. For now the medical doctors have told him he could ride a bike if it’s one where he doesn’t lean forward, such as a Dutch bike (which he hasn’t got, his current bycicle is more of a sporty kind, though not as extreme as a proper road bike) but he has a home ergometer. They strictly forbid him exercises which puts a lot of stress on his stomach such as crunches. He´ll be in a rehab clinic in a couple of weeks.
Now to my question: I want to help him get back into his old form, because it is super important for him. I thought that a structured training program could help him, but he doesn´t like weight training (and I don´t want to nudge him into this direction) and so I’m a bit at a loss what kind of training program to get him. What would you say would be the best way to support him to get back into his old level of activity&cardio fitness?
Thanks a lot,
Robert