Crossfit was my first introduction to Weight lifting. In that sense, I am very grateful to CrossFit. However, the process of learning form is incredibly hard. I went to one of the best Crossfit boxes in SF and while I have complete faith that they did emphasize good form, being overwhelmed by the number of new things I had to learn while maintaing good form was too much for me. This came to a culmination where I hurt my knee while doing fast reps of deadlifts.

Since then, I follow my own program of mixing strength and cardio-vascular activity. It took me two years to learn good form. And good form is really really hard to learn. Mainly because you have to go beyond prescriptive advice from books, coaches or the internet and find out what works well with your body. For example, I have relatively long femurs and a narrow squat stance ends up creating additional pressure on my knees. It took me a long fucking time to get over the prescriptive instructions that one's squat stance has to be shoulder width.

Another thing that I personally realized was that very few people understand the principles behind a fitness goal as opposed to cargo cult practices. For example, for a long time, I thought that the only way to build strength was to do barbell exercises. On the other hand, there is a place for machines. This surprised me. Especially since the internet (bodybuilding.com/reddit) seem to chant about how anyone who doesn't do barbells is doomed.

Also, learn the limits of your body. If you are not 17 and filled with natural testosterone or pump your body with steroids, it is going to be hard for you to achieve the kind of transformations that a lot of people appear to achieve. As you grow older, your body just doesn't want to keep gaining muscle.