Therapeutic exercise has a central role within physiatry. Contrary to other forms of treatment, the patient does not passively absorb energy (i.e. electricity or heat) but has to supply the energy him/herself. Exercise therapy is the only causal therapy in physical medicine and it can be dosed such that it is almost always applicable. Particularly about the latter point there is much confusion: Measures of positioning like in Guthrie-Smith's apparatus equally belong to therapeutic exercise as sequential therapy with power machines. Thus many patients are not submitted to physiotherapy and therapeutic exercise in particular, which are admittedly based on empiricism rather than scientific evaluation. This review attempts to provide an overview of the various methods of exercise therapy--incomplete and prone to the authors own preferences.