A wonderful, even essential piece of equipment for CrossFit, is a five foot length of PVC pipe or wooden dowel. These are great for performing the Olympic Lifts. While the lifts perhaps make more sense when performed weighted, being able to do them with a light weight is a great way to learn proper form. In fact Coach G. calls adding weight to fix a movement "painting a dirty car". Some things you can do with a dowel:

• snatch
• clean and jerk
• Bergner warm-up
• shoulder dislocate
• flagpole strech
• deadlift
• press
• push-press
• push-jerk
• thruster

Here is a surprisingly hard workout you can do with just a dowel:

Broomstick Mile

With a broomstick complete the following:

• Back Squat X25
• Front Squat X 25
• OHS X 25
• Run 400 M
• Shoulder Press X 25
• Push Press X 25
• Push Jerk X 25
• Run 400 M
• Hang Clean X 50
• Run 400 M
• Snatch X 50
• Run 400 M

The Kettlebell is an excellent piece of portable (well, more portable than an Olympic weight set) equipment. Any dumbbell or barbell exercise can replicated with the kettlebell, and more specialized moves can be done as well.

For our purposes, the main moves we will do are:

• The Kettlebell Swing
• The Kettlebell Snatch
• The Kettlebell Clean & Press

Get your kettlebell here.