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Calvin, I'd argue that, for raw strength, the two least technical lifts are the most beneficial. Those are the deadlift and the overhead press. Glenn Pendlay coaches world class athletes and he says go push presses instead of just strict shoulder (flat-footed) presses. Watch some vids and get someone to take a vid of you doing them. View them yourself and you can always post them on the Crossfit Message Board for a critique. Play with it and get comfortable with the technique and start doing them with a weight that you can do three sets of 12, then 9, and then 6 reps, twice weekly. Add 5#/week until you stall, then take a week or two off and start over.

I would agree that barbell squats and power cleans really need a coach, though many have used the above approach to learn them as well.

I think you could manage that worry. Start low, increase slowly, and you'll give yourself time to figure things out. Set up a video camera to the side and compare against known good youtube or rippetoe website technique.

The likelihood of finding a good, accessible technique coach anywhere is slim. There's precisely one guy out of all of The Alaska Club's Anchorage-area trainers who can squat properly. Don't let the wait hold you up.

Fly yourself to Rippetoe's 3-day seminar in Redmond WA in February. Start the program January 1, and the seminar will be right in time as you'll need some good direction a month or two into the program.

Best advice in the thread.

Calvin,
I have the Rippetoe DVD, which shows all the lifts, with lots of examples. You are welcome to borrow it if you'd like. The jokes aren't as good (and that's really saying something), but I like the results better.

I'm not even close to Vek's description of "strong" but I doubled my squat and deadlift in about 3 months. It kind of cracks me up now to warm up with weights that were all I could lift a couple months ago.

Do ant of you use kettlebells?

I mostly do swings with Kettlebells. I've recently learned to do a snatch with one, I think that is a really beneficial exercise. I do them often with a light KB (20-25#) as a warmup. I also do figure-8's between/around my legs sometimes for warmup, using a bent/arched back I flex my torso up and down gently as I do it. Gets everything in your back warm

A kettlebell clean seems a bit silly compared to a power clean with a barbell to me.

A pinched nerve in my neck prevents me from being able to do an overhead barbell squat so I do them with the heaviest kettlebell I have (53#) That isn't much weight but it beats not doing the movement at all.

I see kettlebells as a muscular endurance/metcon tool, not as a strength tool. Having said that though, try 40-30-20-10 reps of KB swings and pushups with 36# or larger KB.

KB swings + plus anything else will work your cardio over pretty good, try mixing in kipping pullups, jumping squats or jumping lunges , clapping pushups, etc. You might just find yourself needing to hurl afterwards

ok fellows I'll be honest I put on more weight that I want to say, and I have no good excuse that being said where should I start. I can't afford$ a gym (new baby on the way in two months), but need to loose weight strengthen up and just get in shape. where should i start? i work really crazy hrs. not on a set time clock, so i need something I can hit anytime. thanks in advance

For your situation P90X would be hard to beat, you can probably find the DVD used locally for cheap. You'll need some dumbells and a pullup bar. Get Mark Rippetoe's book Starting Strength and read it a couple of times, the anatomy is a tad challenging. Start saving for a no-schit barbell(Pendlay or Rogue) and some bumper plates (Hi-temps from Rogue Fitness are the best). Do not throw good money away on iron or a cheap barbell unless you can get them for dirt cheap, don't buy new. You really , really need a good barbell with propper knurling and barends that'll spin so that when you do power cleans your hands don't get chewed up.

Once you get those skills down start spending time at Crossfit.com and check it out. Enjoy the journey, I certainly have.

I agree that p90x will do fine for you. The big thing is to be on a good diet. The workouts are the easy part, eating right is tough, especially when you have bad habits.

Marketing genius' these guys! Cross training has been proven to be effective forever... It's all about movement... Very hard to get some to move... So if p90x gets people to workout fine... No magic bullet!

3 years ago I was in the same spot with a baby on the way. I tried P90x, and while I like it, it was too much between work and the adjustments around family. 90+ minutes a day and being really wiped out physically was more than I could pull from wife/kid/work in that last couple months of pregnancy, holidays, birth, first couple months of kid's life.

What did work for me was marksdailyapple.com. It's a paleo-type diet and very minimal time commitment/flexible exercise philosophy that got me down the road toward the weight loss and fitness I needed to recover. I did something between the diet recommendations and the Zone proportions. The exercise book is free and there are videos on youtube. Once the family dynamic stabilized into a pattern I was able to add in the P90x.

You can get a lot of good workouts without any equipment by using some of the basic exercises for instance

10 pushups - 15 situps - 20 squats as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes

Mix in jumping squats, clapping pushups, Lunges etc.

If you have wieghts, add in push presses, or pullups if you have the space. Really you can get a hell of a workout in 10 minutes Cross fit style.