Is Christian exercise like exercise? Do I get clear gains? 

If I eat well, sleep well and run and do pushups and situps regularly, I know I can get gold form my ippt. And I can see clear improvement in timings and such.

Does it work that way for a relationship with God? Is it if you read your bible, pray everyday, go to church every week and listen to sermons every week you will be closer and closer with God? That you will develop spiritual character, hate sin, flee temptation, love other people more and more?

It seems to me that the answer is... no? (maybe with a few caveats)

I suppose in exercise it is possible to be training wrongly. Like you can think you can do 50 pushups at home easily, but when you go to the ippt testing station you keep getting no counted until you end up with like 38. Maybe your form wasn't correct, maybe you thought you were diligently churning out the reps, but you were actually just doing the worm. 

I think it can be like that. You can read the bible like a story book, or like a chore. Listen to crappy sermons that while not heretical, are just dead. Or not listen, just be there in spirit and the words go in and out. You can pray about health and strength to go through the week every week and nothing changes.

In another sense... I guess the big difference is that it is a relationship and not like building muscles? The cause and effect is a lot more complicated. You can put in lots of effort into seeking a relationship and it doesnt work out mainly due to perhaps people seeking different things. Or it could be just a person is not into you. But that can't be the case with God, God is into me, and you. Or it could be conditions that cannot. Like God has some dealbreakers. Like loving sin. If I love sin, even if I "train" however much, I can't have a good relationship with God, because he demands my all. Or if I love something else.

How similar is building a relationship to like exercising man... I like to think constant effort and stuff like that would lead to incremental gains over the long run. And I think that is true, but then, there are so many other things too.

Having further reflected on it again. Maybe I found another difference. It seems that exercising towards gains the cause and effect doesnt care about the heart with which you do it. You can do it out of vanity, out of health consciousness, out of love - muscle no care, it break and grow. But with relationships perhaps not.