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

Book Description
A scientifically proven plan for turning traditional weight and aerobic exercises into super-exercises, helping muscles reach their "hot point" for faster and better results. By studying the body in motion through advanced MRI technology, trainer-to-the-stars Steve Zim has determined that most of us use only 20 to 40 percent of our muscle capability when we work out. Hot Point Fitness introduces readers to over one hundred of Zim's unique super-exercises, demonstrating routines that will exact 100 percent output for leaner and denser muscle in a fraction of the time standard weight training and aerobic exercise take to get results. A complete plan for total body transformation, Hot Point Fitness also advises on the right foods to fuel the body and manipulate metabolism and it instructs on the most efficient way burn stubborn fat and calories. Focusing on precision in movement and on exercise and diet variation, Steve Zim encourages readers throughout with instructive photographs and day-by-day beginner, intermediate, and advanced workout routines. A revolutionary program that has worked wonders for professional and Olympic athletes and Hollywood actors alike, Hot Point Fitness will help readers of all shapes, sizes and ages realize a dramatic physical transformation in far less time than has been possible before.

About the Author
Personal trainer Steve Zim has worked with Hollywood stars, professional baseball players and boxers, and Olympic athletes. Founder and owner of Los Angeles' hottest gym, "A Tighter U," he is the trainer most often called upon by high-powered sports agents on behalf of their clients. Mark Laska is a professoinal writer and publicist and co-author of The Pilates Powerhouse and Body-Fat Breakthru! Both Steve and Mark live in Los Angeles.