Rachel Gow
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
April 17, 2026 (Updated April 18, 2026, 10:37 a.m. ET)
WORCESTER – If it weren’t for the matching yellow “LIVESTRONG at the YMCA” T-shirts, they’d look likeany other workout group.
But the dozen or so adults rotating through their exercise circuit, complete with pushups and stints on the rowing machines, all have one thing in common: cancer.
Members of the group are participants in LIVESTRONG at the YMCA, a 12-week conditioning program designed to help cancer survivors or those undergoing treatment maintain and regain their strength. Through year-round fundraising efforts the program pays for a free three-month membership to the YMCA, in this case the Greendale Family Branch.
At the helm of the group is Barry Brigham, a decades-long veteran of the YMCA who has headed the Greendale program for six years.
Most of the people at the workout class on Thursday, April 16, had been there far longer than three months, choosing to pay for YMCA memberships and stay in the program.
Part of a club
As Scott Siemen, who is undergoing treatment after his cancer reappeared in January, put it, “It’s not a club you want to be a part of, but it’s a club you’re happy to be a part of.”
While all participants begin the program with varying levels of fitness, and modifications are always given to people facing specific physical limitations, Thursday’s class was no cakewalk.
Completing planks and squats and pushing the weighted sleigh across the gym floor, members sweated through the hourlong circuit.
“People don’t come here to do kumbaya, they come here to exercise,” said Warren Ferguson, a 71-year-oldsurvivor of prostate cancer.
Program members say the workouts help stave off the fatigue that the disease and many of the typical treatments can cause.
Improved sleep
“Before cancer I could survive on five or six hours of sleep,” said Ferguson, who worked as a physician at UMass Memorial Medical Center. “Afterwards, if I didn’t get a solid eight hours the day was shot.”
Ferguson said the program, which he’s participated in for several years, has helped him regain much of his former strength.
For Judy Jeon-Chapman, 67, a former bodybuilder and breast cancer survivor, LIVESTRONG at the YMCA got her back into the gym after cancer treatment dealt a blow to her confidence.
“I was afraid I was going to hurt myself,” Jeon-Chapman said, adding that she’s now discovered a whole new area of the gym and workout routine after joining the group.
Beyond the benefit of exercise, which studies say can significantly increase a cancer patient’s chance of survival, participants say the program is a place they feel understood.
Ferguson recalled a moment after he first joined the program when he overheard a participant talking about theirunease going into surveillance testing to check if their cancer had returned.
He said: “In that moment I realized it was normal to feel anxious and worried about it. Of course you know that, but there’s a part of you that says, ‘Cut it out’ or that wants to protect your family.”
In the program, participants say they don’t have to shy away from the realities of their diagnoses and treatments, which can make sometimes make people without cancer uncomfortable.
“They’re not scared by the “C word,” Jeon-Chapman said of cancer.
“[Cancer] is not something you want to talk about with just anybody.”
‘Like a scary movie’
Many participants shared a common sense of shock and disbelief after their diagnosis, followed by fear. Telling their stories in turn, they nodded knowingly at one another, hopping in with their own anecdotes about the ways their lives changed after cancer.
“The first time you hear it it’s like a scary movie,” said 70-year-old Steve Miller.
Family members told Jeon-Chapman that it was “great news” that she had a type of cancer with a high survival rate.
“They didn’t understand that it’s my peace of mind that’s gone because you don’t think it’ll happen to you especially when you’re healthy,” she said.
While talking openly about their histories and anxieties is helpful, the support participants provide each other is often unspoken, they said.
“It’s wonderful to hear peoples’ stories but you don’t have to talk about it. There’s common ground there even if you’re just rowing next to someone,” said Colleen McGuiness, a survivor of appendix cancer.
“LIVESTRONG takes the loneliness out of cancer,” said Ferguson.
Mission in Motion, a cycling event, is the next fundraising event for LIVESTRONG at the YMCA.
Learn more about LIVESTRONG at the Y
