Effects of Physical Exercise on Response to Treatement in Breast Cancer

All participants undergo physical capacity tests before the onset of NAC and after the last course of NAC but before the breast cancer surgery. A treadmill protocol consisting of twenty-one 1-minute stages, with speed and/or grade increments at each stage, is used to obtain VO2 peak (the highest amount of oxygen consumed at peak exercise) data. The HIIT intervention consists of 2 to 3 exercise sessions per week for 6 months. The HIIT session starts with a 6-minute warm-up period at about 65-70% of maximal heart rate (HRmax) followed by 4 X 4-min high-intensity intervals (85%-95% of HRmax) combined with 3 min period of active recovery (55-70% of HRmax).