Prehabilitation programme for the intervention
group
All intervention patients received a 6- to 8-week,
individualized, preoperative training programme
for exercise at home. It consisted of a daily 30-
minute programme and the patients monitored
their training using a logbook. The programme
focused on improvement of muscle strength for
the back and abdomen and included cardiovascular
conditioning. A physiotherapist supervised the
learning process at the day of inclusion and again
two weeks before the operation. The compliance
of the intervention group was measured for every
type of exercise by daily self-reporting in a
logbook.