First I really want to stress I tried watching this video once, got halfway through, and decided just to do it once and that's all I will ever do it. I do have Tae Bo, B Fit Cardio Kickbox, Kardio Kick, Power Kicks, 9809 and 9702, as well as Fitness Kickbox and out of all of those including the Rachel Hunter tape and Stephanie Steele tape which I used to have; this is the worst.

The good things are the choreography of the actual aerobic portion is decent and the stretching segment at the beginning. The isolated standing segment for kicks is good, not spectacular and so is the floor leg work. The ab work is nothing new and frankly went too fast IMHO. The self defense aspect of this tape is questionable IMO as well.

Basically this tape is suppose to be "ten rounds" of kickboxing. There is only 20 minuntes of kickbox aerobics.

Round 1 is a pretty good stretch segment. It is about 8 minutes long. The problem with this is there is 8 minutes of Ellen K (the co-host) running her mouth about how she hates working out, questioning Zak if she needs to shave her legs, and just make one rude comment after the other.

Round 2: Warm up/breakdown of moves about 8 minutes. Zak does a good job of breaking down the moves, saying go low if you need to. Ellen of course is there with her remarks, which I suppose wouldn't be so much of a problem but Zak's accent makes him difficult enough to understand without Ellen constantly interrupting.

Round 3: Aerobic portion, 20 minutes. This is a pretty nicely choreographed workout and who knows this may be salvagable to add on to another tape. Again Ellen is there and she messes up a lot of the moves, but tells us that's ok because she hates to work out.

Round 4: Breathing technique I have no idea how long this is because it seemed to long. You go from a pretty good intensity workout to STOP nothing! Zak explains how to breath to cool yourself down within two minutes and (from what I could gather) that you don't need a traditional cooldown.

Round 5: Isolated movements. This is similar though not as intense as in Power Kicks. You use the chair for stability as you practice your kicks.

Round 6: Floor leg work or as Zak calls it practiciing your kicks on the floor. Not intense at all, Firmies won't like it.

Round 7: Ab Work. Nothing great here. And he moves too fast IMHO. There is a weird move where you sit in a straddle and then bend on leg over the other to do lower crunches.

Round 8: Stretching, this segment is too short. He only stretches the legs and not the arms which you do use a lot during the aerobic portion, of course that was about a half hour ago so you probably have already stretched while watching Ellen's MTV Zak Aerobic Fantasy Workout.

Round 10: Self Defense. This was basically to tell you self defense is all about attitude and the regular stuff. Nothing bad here.

I know I am missing a round there somewhere, but this is an annoying tape. First it is difficult to understand him coupled with the fact that his lovely co-host keeps degrading him. She called him a blockhead. She said his butt was his best view. She said he didn't speak good English (well duh it's his second language). She doesn't like working out, which I figured out the first time she said it. She kept telling us how lucky we were to have her here.

Then between the aerobic segment and the cooldown (or maybe right after the cooldown) there is the MTV Zak Aerobic Fantasy Segment where Ellen imagines what "Zak Aerobics" are. Basically it is Zak running, kicking, and jumping at what appears to be Death Valley (good scenery) with fellow "classmates." You apparently need numchucks (sorry I can't spell it), sticks, and a huge amount space to sprint with the motorcycle AND outrun it, as well as a large variety of props for this, and to think I thought I used strange things with the Firm! I don't get this segment at all. It reminds me of a fitness show where you learn stuff, but not a workout tape. There is way too much dialogue going on between the two of them during and between rounds, which include introductions. Needless to say your heartrate isn't going to stay up at all unless you do something on your own like tear the tape out of the VCR and stomp on it.

I know there has to be SOMEONE out there that likes this tape. Maybe a friend of Zak's? I really hesitated to write this review, but I felt (thanks Nancy) that if I wrote it maybe I would be saving a few people $10 that could be spent elsewhere.

Stephanie Bridges