The phrase "a familiar exercise" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to refer to an activity or task that is well-known or commonly practiced.
Example: "Completing a puzzle is a familiar exercise for many people during their leisure time."
Alternatives: "a common practice" or "a routine task".
The result was a familiar exercise in art and craft, done with a rosy sweetness.
So she has, for better or worse, become accustomed to a familiar exercise.
The document left the ECB with a familiar exercise of damage limitation, having been greeted with derision on social media.
For many of them, the annual hearing was a familiar exercise, a wintertime rite marked by its tediousness more than anything else.
It was a familiar exercise in futility by the Mets' hitters, who were overwhelmed by the six runs that Rusch allowed in six innings.
Their task for the first leg in Munich is ensuring they remain in the tie, and the second leg is not simply a familiar exercise in saving face.
IT WAS a wearyingly familiar exercise.
Although many, including the superintendent of schools, found it disturbing, the assignment is just a provocative version of the familiar exercise in which you are asked to write an application for a job you're not really interested in or a letter to a congressman in support of a position you don't hold.
In a familiar quadrennial exercise, the staunchly Republican Manchester Union Leader fiercely attacks G.O.P. candidates suspected of being insufficiently right-wing.
She instructed me in her obviously familiar exercise regime and commented on liking her appearance in the gym mirrors.
Readers would be forgiven for assuming the title "The Lost Legends of New Jersey" announces an all-too-familiar exercise in Jersey Irony.
