S R Gym Adajan
Above Way Wait Restaurant, Kalpana Society Part-2, Choksi Wadi,Adajan, Surat, Gujarat 395009
- Mon–Sat
- 06:00 am – 10:00 pm
- Sunday
- Closed
- Google rating
- 4.6 from 28 reviews
Putting on muscle, coached in Surat
The short answer
If you are trying to put on muscle and nothing is happening, the problem is almost always that you are eating too little, and specifically too little protein. Aim for roughly 1.6 grams of protein for every kilogram you weigh, which pooled research across 49 trials found to be the point beyond which more protein adds nothing further, then eat enough total food to gain slowly. Train three or four days a week on compound movements, add weight only when the last repetition still looks like the first, and give it a year rather than a season. A vegetarian Gujarati diet can do this, and it will not happen by accident.
Written byBrijesh 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.
- Published
- Reading time
- 9 min read
The most common enquiry this gym receives is not from somebody wanting to lose weight. It is a young man of twenty-two who weighs fifty-five kilograms, has been training for eight months, and cannot understand why nothing has changed. This page is written for him, and for anyone else who has been eating like a person who is not training.
The problem is almost always the plate
When somebody tells me they cannot gain, I ask them to write down everything they ate yesterday. Nearly every time, the answer explains itself before we have discussed a single exercise.
Two rotli and a shaak at lunch. Tea at four. Something at nine. Perhaps eight hundred calories short of what a training body needs, and perhaps forty grams of protein when it needs a hundred. Then two hours in the gym four days a week, trying to solve a food problem with effort.
You cannot build tissue out of nothing. The training gives the body a reason to build; the food gives it the material. When either is missing nothing happens, and the one that is usually missing in Surat is the food.
How much protein, precisely
This is one of the few questions in fitness with a genuinely settled answer, so it is worth stating exactly.
The International Society of Sports Nutrition puts the useful range at 1.4 to 2.0 grams per kilogram of body weight per day. A meta-analysis pooling forty-nine trials and more than eighteen hundred people found that above a total intake of about 1.62 grams per kilogram, additional protein produced no further gain in fat-free mass at all. So 1.6 is the number I use, and more than 2.0 is money spent for nothing.
- 55 kg, around 88 grams a day
- 65 kg, around 104 grams a day
- 75 kg, around 120 grams a day
- 85 kg, around 136 grams a day
Spread it. The same position stand recommends doses of roughly 0.25 grams per kilogram, or twenty to forty grams, distributed across the day rather than concentrated in one evening meal. Four meals of thirty grams is a better arrangement than one of a hundred and twenty.
Beyond protein, you need a surplus of total calories, and it should be modest. A quarter to half a kilogram of weight gain a month is the rate that puts on muscle rather than fat. Faster than that and you are mostly adding what you will later have to remove.
Building muscle on a vegetarian Gujarati diet
This is the question I am asked most, usually with a slightly defeated tone, and the answer is better than most people expect.
A twelve-week supervised trial compared habitual vegans against omnivores, with protein matched at 1.6 grams per kilogram for both groups. Both gained, and there was no difference between them on leg lean mass, muscle thickness or strength. Not a small difference. None.
The condition that makes it work is hitting the total, and a normal Gujarati day does not. That is the whole problem, and it is a solvable one. There is also a real Indian detail worth knowing: in cereal-heavy diets, lysine is the first limiting amino acid, which is the research reason behind advice that otherwise sounds like something your grandmother said. Dal, dairy and soya are not just tradition here. They are what closes the gap that rotli and rice leave.
I will also be straight about the caveat. Two meta-analyses find a small advantage for animal protein on percentage lean mass, with soy matching milk protein directly. It is a small edge and it is closed by getting the total right, which is exactly what we work on.
The practical assembly, meal by meal, is onprotein for Indian vegetarians.
What the training looks like
Simpler than most people want it to be, and repeated for longer than most people have the patience for. That is the whole method.
- Three or four days a week. Enough stimulus, enough recovery, and a schedule you can hold for a year.
- Compound movements first. Squat, press, row, pull, hinge, while you are fresh. Arms and shoulders afterwards if there is appetite for them.
- Written down, every session. Progress is a number that moves. Without a record you are guessing, and guessing is why people spend two years lifting the same weight.
- Weight goes up when the last repetition still looks like the first. That rule protects the shoulder and the lower back that have to last you thirty more years.
- Yoga at the start, as with everything here. Twelve positions before the first weight.Why.
The full approach is set out onthe S R Gym method, and the beginner version week by week is inyour first 90 days.
How fast this actually goes
Slower than the internet suggests, and the honest numbers are worth having before you start rather than after you are disappointed.
Strength improves within two or three weeks, which is your nervous system learning the movement rather than new muscle. Visible change usually arrives around three to four months. Other people noticing comes later still, and it tends to arrive as a comment about your shoulders in a shirt rather than anything dramatic.
Over a first year of consistent training and eating, a beginner might add somewhere between four and seven kilograms of lean mass. A second year gives roughly half that, and it keeps halving. This is why the people who end up looking like they train are the people who trained for years, not the people who trained hard for a season.
It is also why I would rather you commit to three sessions a week for two years than six sessions a week for two months.
If you have always been thin
Some people genuinely find eating difficult, and telling them to eat more is useless advice. What works, practically:
- Add a meal rather than enlarging existing ones. A fifth eating occasion is easier than a bigger plate.
- Drink some of it. Milk with a banana and peanut butter is several hundred calories that do not fill you the way a plate does.
- Do not fill up on bulk. A large salad and a litre of chaas before the meal is working against you here.
- Keep some fat in the food. Ghee, groundnuts, dry fruit. Calorie-dense food is your friend in this particular project.
- Eat on rest days too. The building happens on those days, and they are the days people forget.
If you have been eating properly for three months and genuinely nothing has moved, see a doctor. Thyroid problems, undiagnosed diabetes and coeliac disease all present this way, and no amount of coaching substitutes for a blood test.
Without shortcuts, and I mean that
A young man who wants to gain size is the person most likely to be offered steroids, and frequently the person offering them is a trainer. In the one Indian survey I can point to, seventy percent of the users said a trainer had persuaded them to start.
I judge bodybuilding at state and national level and I teach steroid awareness on a trainers' certificate course, and I will not coach their use at any level. That is not a moral position I am asking you to share. It is that the evidence on what they do to a heart, a liver and a hormonal system is consistent, and that a twenty-year-old has not yet found out what his own body will do with two proper years.
The full account, with sources, is onsteroids and bodybuilding in India. This gym also does not sell supplements of any kind, which removes the usual reason a trainer might recommend one.
The research this page rests on
The protein numbers on this page are among the better-evidenced things in fitness, so they are cited precisely. Where the evidence is mixed, as it is on plant versus animal protein, that is stated rather than smoothed over.
International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: protein and exercise
Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, Jäger R and colleagues, 2017 · Position stand
A daily protein intake between 1.4 and 2.0 grams per kilogram of body weight is sufficient for most exercising people to build and maintain muscle. It also recommends spreading intake across the day in doses of roughly 0.25 grams per kilogram, or 20 to 40 grams, rather than concentrating it in one meal.
Effect of protein supplementation on resistance training-induced gains in muscle mass and strength
British Journal of Sports Medicine, Morton RW and colleagues, 2018 · Systematic review and meta-analysis, 49 trials, 1,863 participants
Extra protein produced small but real improvements in one-repetition maximum strength and fat-free mass. Beyond a total intake of about 1.62 grams per kilogram per day, more protein produced no further gain in fat-free mass. The effect also shrank with increasing age.
Sports Medicine, Hevia-Larraín V and colleagues, 2021 · Controlled 12-week supervised training trial, 38 men
Habitual vegans and omnivores both training for twelve weeks with protein matched at 1.6 grams per kilogram gained the same leg lean mass, muscle thickness and strength, with no difference between the groups on any measure. The total was matched deliberately, which is the condition that makes it work.
Animal protein versus plant protein in supporting lean mass and muscle strength
Nutrients, Lim MT and colleagues, 2021 · Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised trials
Protein source did not affect absolute lean mass or strength, but animal protein showed a small advantage on percentage lean mass. Included here because the honest position is that a vegetarian diet works and needs more deliberate assembly, rather than that source makes no difference at all.
Protein quality and amino acid requirements in relation to needs in India
Indian Journal of Medical Research, Shivakumar N, Minocha S and Kurpad AV, 2018 · Review of Indian dietary protein quality
In cereal-dominant Indian diets, lysine is the first limiting amino acid, which is why pulses, dairy and soya matter disproportionately on a Gujarati plate. This is the research reason behind advice that otherwise sounds like folk wisdom about dal and curd.
What it costs and where
Membership starts at ₹5,000 for 3 months. Personal training, where the programme and the eating are built around you and adjusted as you go, starts at ₹25,000 for 3 months. The full fee page, and what personal training involves.
Adajan, Surat, Gujarat 395009
S R Gym Katargam
Vihar Society-2, Wadinath Chowk, Plot 169, Ved Road, near Singanpor Char Rasta, Ishwar Nagar Society,Katargam, Surat, Gujarat 395004
- Mon–Sat
- 05:00 am – 10:00 pm
- Sunday
- Closed
- Google rating
- 4.5 from 91 reviews
Gaining muscle: common questions
- How do I gain muscle if I am very thin?
- Eat more than you currently do, consistently, and train three or four days a week with progressive weight on compound movements. Most people who describe themselves as unable to gain are eating far less than they believe, and the fix is adding meals and calorie-dense foods rather than training harder. A realistic target is a quarter to half a kilogram of weight gain a month, with protein at roughly 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight.
- How much protein do I need to build muscle?
- Roughly 1.6 grams for every kilogram you weigh. A meta-analysis pooling 49 trials found that above about 1.62 grams per kilogram per day, additional protein produced no further gain in fat-free mass. For a 60 kilogram person that is around 96 grams a day, and for a 75 kilogram person around 120 grams. Spreading it across meals rather than eating it all at dinner is worth doing.
- Can you build muscle as a vegetarian in India?
- Yes. A twelve-week supervised trial comparing habitual vegans against omnivores with protein matched at 1.6 grams per kilogram found identical gains in lean mass, muscle thickness and strength. The condition that makes it work is hitting the total, which a normal Gujarati day usually does not, and leaning on dal, rajma, chana, paneer, curd, milk and soya, since lysine is the limiting amino acid in cereal-heavy Indian diets.
- How long does it take to see muscle gain?
- Strength moves within two or three weeks, which is your nervous system rather than muscle. Visible change usually takes three to four months, and other people noticing takes longer than that. A beginner training and eating well might add four to seven kilograms of lean mass in a first year, and roughly half that in a second. Anyone promising faster than that is either selling something or leaving out what they are taking.
- Do I need supplements to gain muscle?
- No. A supplement is a convenient way to close a gap on a busy day, and it builds nothing that food does not. The gym does not sell supplements of any kind, which removes the usual reason for a trainer to recommend them. Get the plate right for a month first, then decide whether you still have a gap.
- Does S R Gym coach competitive bodybuilders?
- Yes. Brijesh Joshi is a registered judge with the Indian Body Building & Fitness Federation and President of the Strength Bodybuilding Association South Gujarat, and members of this gym have won medals at district and state level. The coaching covers training, diet, posing and recovery. It does not extend to performance-enhancing drugs, at any level, and he will say so directly.
This page is general information from a coach and is not medical or dietetic advice. If you have been eating and training properly for several months with no change at all, see a doctor rather than a trainer.
Bring me a day of your eating
Written down honestly, including the tea. It is usually the fastest twenty minutes we can spend. Call +91 98790 69960.