Wheeze lifting myself up to exercise (6)
I believe the answer is:
employ
'exercise' is the definition.
(I know that exercise is a more specific form of the action put to work)
'wheeze lifting myself up' is the wordplay.
'wheeze' becomes 'ploy' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'lifting' says to put letters next to each other.
'myself' becomes 'me'.
'up' says the letters should be written in reverse (in down clue: letters go upwards).
'me' reversed gives 'em'.
'ploy' after 'em' is 'EMPLOY'.
'to' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for employ that I've seen before include "Put on the payroll" , "occupation" , "Hire; use" , "Take on (staff)" , "Make use of" .)