In 2017, Fit After Pink owner, Davida Pantuso, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Prior to her diagnosis, she was a fairly active person. She ran, hiked, biked, and practiced yoga. She just loved to move. So when she heard the words “you have breast cancer” she wondered what that meant for her exercise routine during treatment. Fortunately, she had a doctor who encouraged her to continue exercising and told Davida “Exercise is Medicine.” 

A few days later, Davida went to her yoga studio and spoke with the owner. Davida asked the owner if there were any classes that she could recommend for a person going through cancer treatment. She told Davida that she was not welcome to attend her studio because Davida’s treatments were extremely toxic and that made her extremely toxic. The owner could not expose her customers to Davida’s toxicity. As you can imagine, Davida was mortified. She cried the entire way home that night, but the seeds for Fit After Pink were planted. 

Since that dreadful night, Davida has talked with hundreds of breast cancer survivors about their experiences with exercise. Survivors want to be active. However, they don’t recognize their bodies.  Many don’t know how to regain their previous fitness levels. Others don’t know how to start an exercise routine. And few know of resources that can help them. Simply put, appropriate fitness programming does not exist. Each year over 400 people are diagnosed with breast cancer in Summit County alone and there is a great need for these services.

Fit After Pink is on a mission to change this by offering these three things that no other fitness group offers in Akron.

First, we partner with a physical therapist, who specializes in sports medicine and breast cancer recovery. She provides a fitness assessment for each member and communicates with our fitness instructors about appropriate modifications.

Second, our fitness instructors are required to have their Cancer Exercise Trainer certification. This allows us to tailor classes that meet the needs of survivors from before treatment begins to after treatment ends and beyond.

Most importantly, we build an empowering, supportive community among breast cancer survivors and we encourage each person to ‘find their fit.’

If you are a breast cancer survivor, we welcome you to join our community!