Hardly a surprise, but if you want to burn fat well - exercise more

Well what a surprsie. It's not proof per se but it does indicate that the fitter you become the more likely you are to burn (rather than store) fat. And that process is cumulative - ie a good pattern of exercise behaviour fosters a positive feed-back loop of fat-burning potential.

Phys Ed: A Workout for Your Bloodstream - Well Blog - NYTimes.com

What they found was that after 10 minutes of treadmill jogging or stationary-bicycle riding, the healthy adults showed enormous changes in the metabolites within their bloodstream, as did the less-fit group, although to a lesser degree. In particular, certain metabolites associated with fat burning were elevated. The fit adults showed increases of almost 100 percent in many of these molecules. The less-fit group had increases in those same metabolites of about 50 percent. As for the marathoners, their blood contained up to 10 times more of the fat-burning markers.

The lactic acid myth, massage and other contradictions

I never get a massage post-exercise - and yes, I have tried it. Like "warming up" by stretching it just didn't seem to make much sense (instead I warm up by gradually increasing my exercise intensity from a low level). Many others report - or at least hold - a different view. And the article quoted below may help explain at least why some myths persist and why sometimes we do things that we don't actually understand...

So does massage reduce the lactic acid build up? No. But then again why is lactic acid painted as a 'bad guy'? It probably isn't.

Phys Ed: Does Massage Help After Exercise? - Well Blog - NYTimes.com

Lactic acid is widely believed by many of us outside academia to cause muscle fatigue and soreness after exercise. Physiologists are more skeptical. Recent studies have found few negative effects from lactic acid and, in fact, have shown that it provides fuel for tired muscles. But the studies are not definitive, so “it’s still theoretically possible” that lactic acid has some impact on fatigue

Phys Ed: Does Massage Help After Exercise? - Well Blog - NYTimes.com

As a “direct result” of the lessened blood flow to their muscles, Mr. Tschakovsky says, the volunteers being massaged wound up with far less lactic acid removal than the groups who recovered passively or actively. Massage “actually impairs removal of lactic acid from exercised muscle,” Mr. Tschakovsky and his colleagues wrote in their published study.

Phys Ed: Does Massage Help After Exercise? - Well Blog - NYTimes.com

“This experiment had a specific aim, to see whether massage improved blood flow and lactic-acid removal in an exercised muscle. It did not. That does not mean massage doesn’t have other beneficial effects. We just don’t necessarily know what they are yet.”