The main difference between Hot Point Fitness and most fitness books is intensity and structure. Zim leads you through each workout, much like your own personal trainer would. "Hot Point Weight Training is designed to work each muscle to 100 percent of its capacity, and consequently completely transform the way the muscles in your body look," writes Zim. "The point of Hot Point Nutrition is to speed the metabolism and make it burn calories at a white-hot pace. Hot Point Aerobics will super-heat your muscles, and burn fat from your body quickly, safely, and forever," he says.
Zim's program is precisely structured and divided into three 28-day phases. During phase 1, you become a regular exerciser by spending one hour at the gym, three days per week. Phase 2 keeps you in the gym for 90 minutes, four days per week, and gets you to the point of "needing" to exercise. Phase 3--up to two hours a day at the gym, five days per week--brings you to an athlete's level of fitness (strength, flexibility, and endurance).
Zim developed his weight-training exercises by using MRI technology and infrared imaging to examine which muscles work during which exercises, and how hard. He was amazed to learn that traditional weight-training exercises only work 20 to 30 percent of the targeted muscles. He altered exercises and perfected techniques to build muscle density (not necessarily muscle mass), optimally by working muscles to exhaustion.
Zim describes the exercises clearly, with plenty of attention to technique. Each is illustrated by several photographs, which vary in quality (sometimes the lighting or clothing color doesn't provide enough contrast between model and background). Experienced exercisers will find almost all the exercises familiar, but will learn much from the technique recommendations that make the difference between a humdrum workout and an effective, muscle-blasting one. --Joan Price