would say, on the whole, exercise doesn't work, even for someone like me, who is good at sticking to various exercise programs. But I also had several major successes along the way. I think the physical therapist makes a huge difference. Those who stuck to "standard" exercise types were generally not helpful, or no more helpful than the books I already read. But here is an instructive example. I had difficulty recovering after an injury. Exercises prescribed by my PT only made things worse. As a trial, I went to a different one. She looked me over, and said "Let's try a different program for a while". She didn't criticise the other therapist in any way, and in fact I didn't pick up on what she did until about 6 weeks later. In reality she put me on exercises training the same muscle, but about 2 levels down in complexity/load than the previous PT did. At that time I wasn't savvy about exercise as I am now, so I didn't quite realise that this happened. It felt nearly miraculous when my pain levels went down, and doubly miraculous when 6 weeks later she asked me to do the same exercises that the first PT did, and they didn't hurt anymore and were actually helpful. Since then, I have found the same thing. Exercise worked for me when I had sudden exacerbations of my pain due to overworking certain muscles, and some physical therapists were able to find the affected muscle