The phrase "a formal exercise in" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe an activity or task that is structured and follows specific rules or guidelines, often in an academic or professional context.
Example: "The seminar will be a formal exercise in critical thinking, encouraging participants to analyze complex issues."
Alternatives: "a structured activity in" or "an official practice in".
While this erotic tinge is always present, the duet is also a formal exercise in sitting and rolling.
Yet however representative of the chaos in his head, the film's relentlessly paranoid aesthetics come off more as a formal exercise in social dissonance than an empathetic study of human suffering.
Fischer and Jessica Morgan, the Tate Modern's curator, have designed a stunning visual presentation collecting more than 10 years of Fischer's artworks into a formal exercise in high contrasts — order built from disarray, precision from destruction — presented through radical scale shifts, disharmonious color schemes and surprisingly cohesive textural oppositions.
Some regarded it as a formal exercise in logical deduction, with no physical or philosophical significance, which employed ordinary words—such as 'straight' and 'plane' with a covertly changed meaning.
"Why Patterns" is a more formal exercise, in which dancers interact with Ping-Pong balls arranged in a neatly defined space.
In the absence of a formal exercise intervention, a significant annualized increase in skeletal muscle fat infiltration was also reported in a sample of 1678 older adults from the Health ABC study cohort [ 3].
These behaviors may result in lower health care costs regardless of participation in a formal exercise program.
At the University of Chicago, Susan B. Racette and colleagues found that, during a 12-week reducing diet, 13 obese women who participated in a formal exercise program were better able to stay on their diets and lost more weight than did 17 women on reducing diets without exercise.
None of the participants was engaged in a formal exercise program, and the levels of physical activity were comparable between the two groups.
Instead, according to the opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, an official act "must involve a formal exercise of governmental power that is similar in nature to a lawsuit before a court, a determination before an agency, or a hearing before a committee".
As perverse and playful as Mr. von Trier's features ("Dancer in the Dark," "Dogville"), "The Five Obstructions" is only superficially a formal exercise.
