Transport as far as Paddington, say, provides exercise (5,2,4)
I believe the answer is:
bring to bear
'exercise' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'transport as far as paddington' is the wordplay.
'transport' becomes 'bring' (bringing is a kind of transporting).
'as far as' becomes 'to' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'paddington' becomes 'bear' (I've seen this before).
'bring'+'to'+'bear'='BRING TO BEAR'
'say provides' acts as a link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for bring to bear that I've seen before include "Exert" , "Concentrate" , "deliver Pooh a little something?" , "Train" .)