  We find the Hamiltonian for physical excitations of the classical bosonic
string propagating in the AdS_5 x S^5 space-time. The Hamiltonian is obtained
in a so-called uniform gauge which is related to the static gauge by a 2d
duality transformation. The Hamiltonian is of the Nambu type and depends on two
parameters: a single S^5 angular momentum J and the string tension \lambda. In
the general case both parameters can be finite. The space of string states
consists of short and long strings. In the sector of short strings the large J
expansion with \lambda'=\lambda/J^2 fixed recovers the plane-wave Hamiltonian
and higher-order corrections recently studied in the literature. In the strong
coupling limit \lambda\to \infty, J fixed, the energy of short strings scales
as \sqrt[4]{\lambda} while the energy of long strings scales as \sqrt{\lambda}.
We further show that the gauge-fixed Hamiltonian is integrable by constructing
the corresponding Lax representation. We discuss some general properties of the
monodromy matrix, and verify that the asymptotic behavior of the quasi-momentum
perfectly agrees with the one obtained earlier for some specific cases.
