[.ca] Hot Point Fitness: The Revolutionary New Program For ... (ISBN 0738206032)

From Amazon.com:
Hot Point Fitness author Steve Zim is a personal trainer/gym owner who has "a small army" of personal trainers that uses his method. Zim personally trains mostly celebrities and professional athletes, especially Olympic figure skaters and professional baseball players. His clients aim for optimal physical appearance as well as physical performance. Their sports depend on strength, agility, flexibility, and speed. According to Zim, you can achieve your own best personal fitness level by using the Hot Point Fitness program. The goal: to transform your body into the best shape ever. 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

Simple but Effective:
I am a Personal Trainer with a degree in Exercise Science. I saw a breif story on a entertainment news program about the book. As with most new fads/techniques, I performed my own little study on its efficacy. It was great. I saw visual, as well as, measured (increased strength, decreased body fat ...)improvements. It describes exactly what to do during each exercise to get maximal results. I even sent it to my sister in another state to use to as she prepares herself to look great on her appraoching wedding day. I wish I could train her myself but this is the next best thing. If you can't hire a trainer, I recommend you buy the book, read it cover to cover, then do it! It is simple and effective.

Okay -- but there are better books on fitness:
Steve Zim's "Hot Point Fitness" is a good, solid approach to building a more fit body. I see lot's of complaints in these reviews that there's nothing new here ... however, that's kinda the point. There really isn't anything "revolutionary" that anyone can write on this stuff -- just eat right, do cardio training and weight training. Zim writes some good stuff on applying these simple principles with his own "hot point" approach. However, I would recommend Bill Phillip's "Body for Life" way over Zim's book. Although fairly detailed weight training descriptions are covered in the book, it is very short on diet and cardio training details (examples, approaches, etc). There's also no description on how to do exercises in a home-gym setting and absolutely no discussion on supplements (good or bad). In addition, I think Zim focuses too much on cardio training and, by his phase 3, has one over-training (5 days lifting/cardio per week is too much!). My suggestion, go with Body for Life which is more complete and sensible.

Great motivation and guidance for fitness success.:
I am a fitness trainer and have read dozens of articles and books in the field of fitness. With that in mind, I must say that I found Hot Point to be an outstanding book of it's kind. At 1st, I found it too similar to Body for Life and it turned me off as a felt it was an imitation, but, as I read on, I realized that it has a lot of it's own unique insights and guidelines that even Body for Life does not. Although, I feel Body For Life is an outstanding book, it always bothered me that it OVERSIMPLIFIED at times, one thing Hot Point, does not. The authors manage to explain things in great scientific detail, in a way a even young teen can understand. For example, Hot Point gives VERY precise nutritional info. Their method of explaining nutritional needs is not only exact, but also very informative. Other similar books just give the oversimplified methods of eating ("measure food by fist & palm portions"), Hot Point gives you that option but goes further by teaching you top notch eating methods!!! I can't stress how important that is! Also, the cardio explantions are great. They lay out great programs and again great insight into exactly why and how to do it. All in all, I recommend it highly it as a great resource. You can get a lot of the great things from Hot Point that Body For Life offers with greater more detailed information. While it's true that most of the info isn't miracle, ground breaking advice, it is quite well structured, they use what's the best of what's out there and transformed into a highly effective program. It's a great book worth getting!

Great Fitness Plan - not all-encompassing, though:
I've been lifting weights and doing some cardio work on and off for more than 20 years. Boy that makes me feel old at 34! I would go into the gym and thought with my vast "knowledge" I could just wing it. I wasn't a mess, but I really hadn't progressed in a long time. Same old, same old. Reasonably strong, but not getting stronger, and about 30lbs overweight. I read this book about the same time I read Howard Shapiro's Picture Perfect weight loss, which is a fantastic, common-sense approach to eating better (not dieting). I started out exercising according to Hotpoint Phase 2, and following the principles in Picture Perfect weight loss. In just under 3 months, I've reduced my body fat from 33+% to about 21% (I know, I still need to lose more, but I will). Hotpoint fitness provided the motivation and structured weightlifting plan that has really made a difference. If you are looking for a book to teach you EVERYTHING about fitness, this alone won't cut it. He really doesn't talk about the specifics of cardio, he just says: get your heart rate in this zone, for this length of time. That was fine with me, but others might like more detail. I just went and bought a \oprice\c heart rate monitor (chest strap and watch) from \oa local retailer\c, and I can walk fast, run, bike, almost anything to stay in the zone for the prescribed lenght of time. I didn't pay much attention to his nutrition either. It seemed like sound advice, but I was/am following the Picture Perfect plan for my eating. They seem to follow the same principals, Hotpoint is just more structured. For a "get-in-shape" motivational book, with some great innovative exercises and levels for everybody, I've not seen a better workout book.

Disappointed:
I was looking forward to this book after reading wonderful reviews. I have a master's degree in exercise physiology and own a personal traing business as well as manage a health club with over a dozen personal trainers. I am always looking for fresh approaches to exercise programming. The theory behind this book (MRI imaging to find exercise techniques that fully target the muscles) is very interesting. Unfortunately the author is not a writer, and apparently had a poor choicee for an editor. There are many typos and poor writing that detract from the book. The nutrition guidelines give okay percentages, but when you do the calculation it leaves you very short on calories based on energy expenditure (and part of the calculation is written backwards!). The most amazing mistake (in addition to misinformation about metabolism and energy) is the repeated reference to ENDOMORPHINS!!!! Come on--how can that have even made it to print??? An Endomorph is a particular body type---ENDORPHINS give you the 'runner's high'. ANY experienceed personal trainer should know that. So, sorry Mr. Zim...I had high hopes but can't get past all the errors.