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How to join a gym in Surat, and what your first week looks like

The short answer

To join a gym in Surat at either of my two branches, walk in during opening hours, look at the floor and ask me anything you want to ask, then pay for a three month block and start the same day if it suits you. Membership starts from ₹1,700 for one month and personal training with me starts from ₹10,000 for one month. I know of no legal requirement in India to produce identity documents to join a gym and I ask for none, so what I need from you is a working phone number, somebody I can call in an emergency, and an honest account of any injury or medical condition you are carrying. Katargam opens at 05:00 and Adajan opens at 06:00, both run until 22:00 from Monday to Saturday, and both are closed on Sunday.

Brijesh Joshi, founder and head coach of S R Gym, Surat

Written by Brijesh Joshi

Founder of S R Gym, Surat, coaching since 1999. President of the Strength Bodybuilding Association South Gujarat and a registered IBBFF judge. See credentials.

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Joining takes about ten minutes at the desk and you can train the same day. I have written this page because the mechanics of signing up are the part people worry about unnecessarily, and the parts that genuinely deserve your attention are what happens after you pay, whether the hours fit the life you actually live, and whether this is the right gym for you at all. All of that is below, including the places where my honest answer is that you should ring me and ask.

The steps to join, in order

There are four steps and none of them require you to book anything in advance. Walk in during opening hours at either the Adajan branch or the Katargam branch, and if I am on the floor coaching when you arrive, wait a few minutes and I will come to you. I coach at both branches myself, which is the reason you will always be speaking to the person who will actually be training you.

The four steps to joining S R Gym in Surat, what each one involves and roughly how long it takes
Step What happens What you need How long
1. Walk in and look You see the floor, the equipment and the people training on it at the hour you would be training. Ask me whatever you want to ask. Nothing at all 10 to 15 minutes
2. Tell me your situation Your age, your work hours, any injury or medical condition, and what you are hoping to change. This is what your programme gets built from. An honest answer about your health 10 minutes
3. Pay for the block Membership from ₹1,700 for one month, paid in full at the start. Personal training is priced separately. Cash or a digital payment, plus your phone number and an emergency contact 5 minutes
4. Do your induction Your first coached session with me. Yoga and Surya Namaskar first, then how each machine adjusts and what weight you start on. Shoes you can train in and a water bottle About an hour

Confirm the current rate for your branch on +91 98790 69960 before you travel across the city, because published rates start from these figures.

What to bring, and what I actually ask for

No document is required to join here, and as far as I know none is legally required to join a gym anywhere in India. I want to say that plainly because a fair number of people put off joining out of a vague worry that they will be asked for an Aadhaar card or a medical certificate they do not have. Nothing of the sort is needed to walk in and look at the place.

What I take down at the desk is short. Your name, a phone number that actually reaches you, the name and number of somebody I can ring if something goes wrong while you are training, your age, and a straight answer on any injury, surgery or medical condition you are carrying. That last one matters more than the rest put together, because a shoulder that dislocated four years ago or a back that flares up twice a year changes what I put in front of you on your first day. I would far rather hear about it before your induction than discover it in week three.

For the session itself, bring shoes you can train in, clothes you can move in, a water bottle and a small towel. Anything beyond that is optional. The gym sells no supplements of any kind, so nobody is going to walk you past a counter of tubs on your way in, and if you want to know what I think you should be eating instead, that is covered on the protein page and in the Gujarati diet guide.

On medical clearance, the honest position is this. Most healthy adults can begin moderate training without seeing a doctor first, and the American College of Sports Medicine rewrote its screening guidance in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise in 2015 for the specific reason that unnecessary referrals were acting as a barrier to people starting. Where clearance is genuinely worth getting is if you have a known heart, kidney or metabolic condition, and diabetes counts here, or if you get chest pain, unusual breathlessness or dizziness. In those cases speak to your doctor first and tell me at the desk either way. I coach around conditions all the time, which is what the diabetes page goes into, and I am careful never to be the person who declares you fit to train.

What you pay, when you pay it, and monthly terms

Membership starts from ₹1,700 for one month, paid at the start of the block by UPI, bank transfer or card, and that is the full floor at either branch with me coaching on it. Personal training, meaning one to one work with me on a programme written for you alone, starts from ₹10,000 for one month. It is charged on top of a membership rather than instead of one, and starts at ₹7,000 a month with one of the trainers I employ. The whole card, including longer terms, the couple rate, the day pass and online coaching, is on the fees page, with a wider look at what gyms in this city charge on the gym fees page.

You can pay by the month, and the longer blocks cost less per month: twelve months at Adajan is ₹9,000, or ₹750 a month against ₹1,700. My advice, which is a coaching judgement rather than a research finding, is to start monthly anyway. In the years since I opened this floor in 1999 I have watched annual memberships get bought in January on the strength of the discount and abandoned in February. Take one month, find out whether you actually come four times a week, and buy the year in March knowing the answer. The gym makes less money that way and it is still what I tell people.

Whether the rate is worth paying is a separate question from what it costs, and I have tried to answer it properly on how to choose a gym in Surat, which is written to be useful even if you end up joining somewhere else.

Which branch, which hours, and the Sunday closure

The two branches keep different opening times and it is worth reading that carefully before you plan your week. Katargam opens at 05:00 and Adajan opens at 06:00. Both close at 22:00, both run Monday to Saturday, and both are closed on Sunday. Katargam sits at Wadinath Chowk on Ved Road near Singanpor Char Rasta, and Adajan is above Way Wait Restaurant in Choksi Wadi. Full details are on the timings page.

The Sunday closure deserves a proper look before you pay, because some gyms in this city do open on a Sunday morning. My case for a six day week is straightforward. The World Health Organization guidance published in 2020 asks adults for 150 to 300 minutes of moderate activity a week plus muscle strengthening on two or more days, and six training days leaves comfortable room to meet that, even at the upper end of the range. The people who struggle with the closure are usually the ones for whom Sunday is the only free morning, and if that is you, I would say so at the desk before paying.

The 05:00 opening at Katargam is the other side of the same coin. A large number of my members there work in shops, factories and diamond units where the day starts early, and a gym that opens at six simply does not fit that life. If you have an hour before your shift, Katargam is the branch to look at first.

What an induction is, and your first week

An induction is the first proper session on the floor with a coach, and it is where you learn how each machine adjusts to your body, what load to start on, and how to set up the lifts you will be repeating for months. Yours is with me and it takes about an hour. It is included in your membership, and the whole hour goes on your training.

Every session at both branches opens with yoga and the twelve positions of Surya Namaskar before anybody touches a weight, and that has been the house rule since I opened in 1999. Your induction opens the same way. I have written out my reasoning in full on the Surya Namaskar guide , and the short version is that it warms the whole body through a full range of motion and it gives me ten minutes to watch how you move before I hand you a barbell.

On what the induction is for, the evidence is thinner than I would like. Work published in Injury Epidemiology in 2015, looking at gym injuries arriving at emergency departments in Victoria, found that overexertion and strenuous movement accounted for 36.2 per cent of cases and being crushed by falling or dropped weights for 16.3 per cent, with resistance training behind more than half of injuries by activity. Those are the two things going wrong most often. An induction is where I show you the load to start at and how to set up each lift so that you are not working it out alone in week one. That is a description of what I do, and I am not going to dress it up as proof that a supervised start prevents injury, because the research does not show that.

Your first week itself is deliberately unspectacular. You will train three or four times, the sessions will feel shorter than you expected, and the weights will feel lighter than your ego would like. That is the point of it. Soreness in the first fortnight is common and it usually settles as your body adapts. What I am watching for in that week is whether your form holds when you get tired, and how your body responds to being asked to do something it has not done in years. The first ninety days guide maps out where this goes after that, and the method page explains how I structure a block.

Golden rules for the gym

The rules I give every new member in their first week, in Hindi. Seven minutes.

Watch on YouTube

Who this is for

I would be glad to have you on the floor if you recognise yourself in any of these.

  • You are starting from nothing and you want somebody to tell you what to do rather than leave you to copy whoever looks confident.
  • You work an early shift in a shop, a factory or a diamond unit and you need a gym that is already open at 05:00, which is Katargam.
  • You sit at a desk for ten hours a day and your neck and back have started complaining about it, which is what the back and posture page is written for.
  • You are over forty, or carrying a condition such as diabetes, and you want somebody who will build the programme around it instead of ignoring it.
  • You have joined gyms before, drifted away after six weeks, and you suspect the missing piece was somebody paying attention to you.
  • You want to compete on a bodybuilding stage in South Gujarat, and you would rather train with somebody who judges those competitions and knows the standard being applied, which I do.

Who this is not for

These are the people I would rather turn away at the desk than take money from and disappoint three weeks later.

  • You want to use anabolic steroids and you want a coach to supervise it. I refuse to coach steroid use at any level, for anybody, and my reasoning is set out in full on the steroids guide . If that is the plan, we are the wrong gym.
  • Sunday is the only morning you are free. We are closed and I am not going to pretend that a membership you can use one day a week is worth your money.
  • You want a place to swipe in, put your headphones on and be left entirely alone. I coach on the floor and I will correct your form, which some people find intrusive and would honestly prefer to avoid.
  • You want a promise that a specific result will arrive by a specific date. I have never made that promise to anyone since I opened in 1999 and I am not going to start, because the people who make it are either guessing or selling you something.
  • You are looking for the cheapest membership in Surat. There are cheaper floors in this city than mine and I would not argue with anyone who chooses one, because a cheap gym you attend beats an expensive one you avoid.
  • You need a swimming pool, a steam room or a cafe. This is a strength floor with weights, machines and a coach on it, and nothing else.

A coached gym against a budget chain

Most people choosing a gym in Surat are really choosing between two categories rather than two businesses, and it helps to see the choice that way. I will describe the categories and leave the naming of individual gyms out of it, because I have no interest in running down anyone else's floor.

A category level comparison of a coached gym against a budget chain gym, across the things that usually decide the choice
What you are choosing A coached gym, which is what this is A budget chain floor
Who writes your programme One coach who has met you and knows your injuries Usually a template, or whatever you found online
Price Higher per month, from ₹1,700 for one month here Lower, and often the deciding factor
Facilities Weights, machines and floor space, with no pool and no cafe Often broader, with classes and extras included
Opening hours Six days, 05:00 at Katargam and 06:00 at Adajan, closed Sunday Often seven days, sometimes longer hours
Who is on the floor Me, Brijesh Joshi, coaching every session at both branches Floor staff, with coaching charged as an extra
Best suited to Beginners, people with a condition or injury, anyone who has drifted away from a gym before Experienced trainers who already know exactly what they are doing

If you already know how to programme your own training and you simply need equipment and a door that opens early, a budget floor will serve you perfectly well and I would tell you so to your face. What I sell is the coaching, and more than 20,000 members have come through these two floors since 1999. The credentials behind that coaching are photographed and published on the credentials page, and my full background is on my own page.

Pausing a membership, and travelling for work

A great many people in Surat travel for work, sometimes for a fortnight at a stretch, and I get asked about pausing a membership often enough that it belongs on this page. Here is my honest answer. I am not going to publish a freeze policy with a fee attached to it, because any number I printed here would be a number I had invented for a website rather than one I had agreed with you at the desk. The figures you will find online for gym freeze charges in India come mostly from software companies advising gym owners on how to design a policy, and they describe nothing about how this gym works.

What I would ask you to do is lay out your travel pattern at the desk while we are still agreeing the block. If you know you will be away for three weeks out of the next twelve, say so while we are still talking about the block, and we will deal with it then. That conversation is far easier to have in advance than as a request halfway through a quarter.

If you travel constantly, or you have moved away from Surat altogether and still want me coaching you, the sensible route is online coaching, where the programme and the nutrition are adjusted remotely and the gym you use is whichever one you can reach. The furthest I have coached that way is the United States, one member over a sixteen week block, across a nine and a half hour time difference.

One member's experience, offered as one person's account rather than as evidence that anything reliably works: Ashutosh Banerjee, a marketing professional from IIT Bombay, has trained at Adajan from 8am to 9am since February 2026, and in September 2026 he reported that he had gone three months without the neck and back pain he used to have, crediting the daily Surya Namaskar for the flexibility. That is one man describing his own body. It is not a prediction about yours, and you can read the rest of what members have said on the transformations page.

Questions people ask before they join

What documents do I need to join a gym in Surat?
I know of no law in India that requires a gym to ask you for identity documents, and I certainly do not turn people away over paperwork. What I take down at the desk is your name, a phone number that reaches you, a person I can call if something goes wrong during a session, your age, and anything medical I should know about. If you want to be certain what to carry before you cross the city, ring +91 98790 69960 and ask, because I would rather answer that question on the phone than have you guess from a website.
Can I pay monthly instead of for three months?
The rate I publish is quoted for three months, which starts from ₹1,700. My reason for quoting it that way is a coaching judgement rather than a research finding, so please take it as one: on my floor, three months is about the shortest block over which a beginner tends to feel a change worth paying for. I am not going to print a monthly figure here that I have not committed to, so if a shorter term is the only thing that works for you, call +91 98790 69960 and ask me directly.
What is a gym induction and do I get one?
An induction is the first proper session on the floor, where somebody shows you how each machine adjusts to your body, what weight to start with, and how to set up the basic lifts. Everybody who joins here gets one from me, and it begins the way every session at both branches has begun since 1999, with yoga and the twelve positions of Surya Namaskar before any weight is touched. It takes roughly an hour and it is included in your membership.
Can I freeze my membership if I am travelling?
Ask me, because I am not going to publish a freeze policy on this page that I have not agreed with you in person. People in Surat travel for work constantly and I have handled it case by case for years, so the sensible thing is to talk your travel pattern through with me while we are still agreeing the block. Call +91 98790 69960 and we will sort it out at the desk.
Do I need a doctor's check-up before I join a gym?
Most healthy adults can begin moderate training without medical clearance, and the American College of Sports Medicine revised its screening guidance in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise in 2015 precisely because unnecessary doctor referrals were stopping people from starting at all. If you have a known heart, kidney or metabolic condition, diabetes included, or you get chest pain, breathlessness or dizziness, please clear it with your doctor before you start and tell me at the desk either way. My job is coaching, so I am the person who builds your training around a condition, and your doctor is the person who decides whether you are fit to begin.
Is the gym open on Sunday?
Both branches are closed on Sunday and have been for years, so a six day week is what you are buying. The World Health Organization guidance published in 2020 asks for 150 to 300 minutes of moderate activity a week plus muscle strengthening on two or more days, and a Monday to Saturday gym gives you far more room than that needs. Katargam opening at 05:00 is the part most people find useful, because it means you can train and still reach a factory or a shop by seven.

The research this page rests on

Where this page makes a health claim, here is what it rests on and how strong that evidence actually is. Where I am giving you my own coaching judgement instead, I have said so in the sentence.

  1. Updating ACSM's Recommendations for Exercise Preparticipation Health Screening

    Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2015 · Expert consensus guideline

    The screening model was rewritten because the older one produced excessive physician referrals, which the authors describe as a possible barrier to exercise participation. Clearance is recommended where cardiovascular, metabolic or renal symptoms are present, or where known disease is present and the person intends to train at vigorous intensity.

  2. The causes of injuries sustained at fitness facilities presenting to Victorian emergency departments

    Injury Epidemiology, 2015 · Descriptive study of emergency department records, Australia

    Of 2,873 cases with a stated cause, 36.2 per cent were overexertion or strenuous movement and 16.3 per cent involved being crushed by falling or dropped weights. Resistance training accounted for 55.6 per cent of injuries by activity. The authors recommend qualified supervision, though a descriptive study of this kind cannot show that supervision reduces injuries.

  3. Supervised versus unsupervised exercise: a systematic review of 34 randomised trials

    PubMed Central, 2024 · Systematic review of randomised controlled trials

    Supervision showed modest advantages for strength and function in older adults, with no serious adverse events in either group and identical attendance at 81 per cent. No trial demonstrated that supervision lowers injury rates, which is why I claim what an induction does rather than what it prevents.

  4. WHO Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour

    World Health Organization, 2020 · International guideline

    Adults are advised to accumulate 150 to 300 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous activity each week, together with muscle strengthening work on two or more days. A gym open six days a week comfortably exceeds what this asks for.

Come and look at the floor first

Walk in at either branch during opening hours and ask me anything before you pay for anything. If you would rather check the rate or the timings first, call +91 98790 69960 or send me a message and I will answer it myself.

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