I think there are two very different cases of “almost works” that are being referred to. The first is where the added effort is going in the right direction, and the second is where it is slightly wrong. For the first case, if you have a drug that doesn’t quite treat your symptoms, it might be because it addresses all of them somewhat, in which case increasing the dose might make sense. For the second case, you could have one that addresses most of the symptoms very well, but makes one worse, or has an unacceptable side effect, in which case increasing the dose wouldn’t help. Similarly, we could imagine a muscle that is uncomfortable. The second case might then be a stretch that targets almost the right muscle. That isn’t going to help if you do it more. The first case, on the other hand, would be a stretch that targets the right muscle but isn’t doing enough, and obviously it could be great to do more often, or for a longer time.
I think there are two very different cases of “almost works” that are being referred to. The first is where the added effort is going in the right direction, and the second is where it is slightly wrong. For the first case, if you have a drug that doesn’t quite treat your symptoms, it might be because it addresses all of them somewhat, in which case increasing the dose might make sense. For the second case, you could have one that addresses most of the symptoms very well, but makes one worse, or has an unacceptable side effect, in which case increasing the dose wouldn’t help. Similarly, we could imagine a muscle that is uncomfortable. The second case might then be a stretch that targets almost the right muscle. That isn’t going to help if you do it more. The first case, on the other hand, would be a stretch that targets the right muscle but isn’t doing enough, and obviously it could be great to do more often, or for a longer time.