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Guest post by Parth from Shah Training

“I can’t afford a gym membership and the only equipment I have is a jump rope, floor mat, and a 15 pound weight. My goals are to define my muscles, focusing on the abs and chest.”

In my opinion, a jump rope, a floor mat, and a 15lb dumbbell is more than enough equipment to start you off on your goals. A few months back, I had developed a one-arm dumbbell exercises video where I features four exercises that you could perform in the comfort of you own home, training your full body.

QUICK STORY: I once had an overweight, 300lb kid my age come to my house to work out. I put him through the following workout:

One-arm Clean and Press 3×10
One-arm Swing 3×10

This was done with the 15lb dumbbell, a weight that should be simple for a male of that weight. I alternated between each exercise, resting 90 seconds between each exercise. The entire workout took him 15 minutes to perform, and it took him 45 minutes to recover. He never came back.

So just by swinging around a 15lb dumbbell, this overweight kid got an intense workout. In the workout video, I performed 4 exercises, 20 reps each for 3 rounds. The moral of the story is: everyone is capable of different things. For a beginner, a jump rope and a 15lb dumbbell are going to be more than enough to get them to lose some weight. As you progress, you need to find new ways of challenging yourself.

About the Author

Parth Shah is a Strength Consultant based in New Hyde Park,New York and is currently going through his own personal physique transformation. Check out his website: http://shahtraining.com/

Chess is a game with the ultimate goal of capturing or trapping your opponent’s King. With that one goal in mind players strategically move their pieces to attack their opponent’s pieces. In this post I have laid out the basics to the this great game of strategy.

Setup
Set up the board where the white square is on the right for each player. View diagram below and the individual piece information also available with each piece description.

Chess Pieces
There are 16 pieces that make up each players army that is made up of 6 different pieces.

Pawn Quantity: 8 Set up: 2a - 2h and 7a - 7h in each players second row Move: Forward only advancing toward the opponent 1 or 2 places from original square in first move then only 1 square. Capturing is only in a forward diagonal.
Rook Quantity: 2 Set up: 1a and 1h, 8a and 8h Move: Straigt forwards, straight backwards, left or right multiple squares
Knight Quantity: 2 Set up: 1b and 1g, 8b and 8g Move: 1 square any direction then diagonal 1 square from it’s original position, it’s a L shape
Bishop Quantity: 2 Set up: 1c and 1f, 8b and 8g Move: Diagonally forwards or backwards multiple squares
Queen Quantity: 1 Set up: Set up in remaining square after pawns, knights, bishops, and rooks have been placed in it’s respective color(White Queen in white square and the opposite) Move: Forwards, backwards, left, right, and diagonal multiple squares
King Quantity: 1 Set up: Set up in last remaining square after all other pieces have been set Move: Forwards, backwards, left, right, and diagonal 1 space

Starting the Game
To start the game white always moves first then black then continue to alternate and there must always be move on every turn with no passes.

End Game
Throughout the game there will many moves to capture and defend your pieces with the final goal of capturing or trapping the King. There are two ways that a game can end and it is checkmate and stalemate. If there is an attack on the King, that term is referred to as check and if the King cannot escape that attack or be defended by another piece it is checkmate. Now a stalemate is when one player’s last piece is the king that has no move to make without entering a square that it will be captured. A checkmate and stalemate will signify the end of a game.

Those are the basics with everything you need to know to set up, start, and finish a game of chess. Chess is a great game of strategy where you always have to be one step ahead your opponent to win and plan your every move. If the game fancies you, we have some nice chess sets in the games store of Tastefully Driven.

With “web 2.0″ making the transition from targeting the tech savvy to the mainstream, there are an increasing number of tools available online that are not only free, but are often times more intuitive and feature-filled than their offline counterparts. With the economy struggling, everyone is looking for ways to cut costs without sacrificing their current lifestyle. Below are five of my favorite free tools. The only requirements: an email account and a high speed internet connection. Each also adds a bit of freedom by giving you the advantage of being able to access your account online from any computer in the world.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets

What it does: office productivity suite
What it replaces: Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and Powerpoint
Where to find it: http://docs.google.com/

While not as feature-rich as its Microsoft counterpart, Google does have several unique offerings in their office suite. Being web based allows for document collaboration (much better than emailing several copies of a file back and forth), the ability to create surveys with spreadsheets, or the option embed YouTube videos within presentations. Advanced users will want the ability to run macros or other features within spreadsheets. Most of the time downloading the free Open Office as a supplement to Google Docs solves these problems without costing you a penny. We’ve been using the Google Docs / Open Office combo as a company for a while now and haven’t had any occurrences arise where we needed Microsoft Office to do something.

Mint

What it does: personal finance management
What it replaces: Quicken
Where to find it: http://www.mint.com/

Mint takes personal finance management to the next level. It securely syncs with all of your bank accounts and credit cards to automatically classify all of your expenses in categories like food, bills, entertainment, etc. It then uses that information to create a budget for you and track spending. You can compare your finances to other people in similar situations, and even have Mint send you text messages or email alerts when you have a low balance in your account or a credit card payment is due.

Pandora

What it does: music player and recommendations
What it replaces: iPod/iTunes
Where to find it: http://www.pandora.com/

If you do most of your music listening from your computer than you will be happy to make the switch to Pandora. Pandora has almost every single song from every single artist classified in a way that matches your music preferences to only the songs that they know you will like. Started in 2000, the Music Genome Project has classified music by more than just genre. They analyze the unique “genes” of each song. From their website “Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony.” To truly be appreciated Pandora is the type of thing that needs to be experienced. I documented my personal experience with Pandora over on my blog with a post entitled Pandora Knows Me Better Than I Do.

Hulu

What it does: television and movies from FOX, NBC, and more
What it replaces: Netflix subscription, DVD sets, DVR
Where to find it: http://www.hulu.com/

There is one caveat to Hulu - the programming is still relatively limited and you’re at their mercy in terms of episode selection. I’d say about 60% of my favorite shows are represented on Hulu. Some shows (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) have nearly all of the episodes online, while others (The Simpsons) only have the most recent episodes. Nonetheless, it has changed my TV viewing habits. No longer do I need to turn on the TV on Sunday @ 8 PM or set my DVR - if I miss an episode of The Simpsons I know I can just catch it the following day on Hulu. The movie selection is still in it’s infancy. You’ll always be able to find a movie to watch, but you aren’t going to find all of your favorites quite yet. Full screen picture quality is very good - not as good as a DVD but better than an analog TV signal from a TV tuner card.

Google Reader

What it does: RSS news reader
What it replaces: newspaper and magazine subscriptions
Where to find it: http://www.google.com/reader

RSS is still not a mainstream technology, but that’s changing rapidly. Nearly every major newspaper, magazine, and blog now offer at least one RSS feed for free. With free and simple software like Google Reader, anyone can cancel their newspaper and magazine subscriptions and not miss a thing. See our RSS Explained: the free technology that will change your life for more information and detailed instructions for how to get started with RSS.

Sending your order as a gift? We’re now offering Tastefully Driven Cards that can be included in any order for free. We will hand-write a custom message on the inside of the card and include it with the order when it is shipped. We also won’t include the receipt so the recipient doesn’t know how much you spent.

To include a Gift Card in your order, simply request it in the Comments section of the Checkout page.

If you have any questions or special requests you can email us at support [at] tastefullydriven [dot] com and we’ll be happy to help.

With Father’s Day just around the corner (June 15th for those who were unaware) it’s a good day to get a head start on that special gift for Dad. Ideas are tough to come by on a yearly basis, so thankfully Tastefully Driven has come along this year to solve that problem. All of our products are the type of things that actually make it look like you put some thought into this years gift. In particular, some of our bests gifts for Dad are:

Ritual Gift Set

The Ritual Gift Set is perfect way to help Dad take his personal care to the next level. Included in this elegant wooden box are Trifecta: Face, Body, and Hair Wash, The Whip Shaving Cream, Razor Rinse, The Balm: Post Shave Gel, and - of course - Nature Calls Toilet Drops to get rid of that unmistakable odor that emanates from the bathroom after Dad comes out of there.

Plastic Poker Cards

Is Dad a poker player? If so, he needs to be experiencing the quality of 100% Plastic Playing Cards. Plastic cards are more resistant to bending and creasing, can be washed if they get marked or you spill a beer on them, and can last 50 - 100 times longer than regular playing cards. Take a look at the video below:

Home Gym Starter Kit

Need a subtle way to tell Dad he should get in shape? Busy Fathers don’t have time to get to the gym, but our Home Gym Starter Kit includes everything he needs to get fit in the comfort of his own home. This package includes resistance bands, chin up bar, body ball, and jump rope for under $50!

Tastefully Driven Gift Certificates

Or, if you can’t decide, we always offer Tastefully Driven Gift Certificates that can be downloaded and printed immediately after purchase.

Tastefully Driven Gift Cards

If you’re looking to send your gift directly to Dad, we will include a hand-written gift card with your message in the order at no charge (and we throw out the receipt so Dad doesn’t know how much you spent). Just use the “Comments” field when you check out to specify that you want the gift card and what you want the message to say and we will take care of the rest.