Kalpesh
Client in the USA
Coached entirely online from Surat, training and nutrition adjusted remotely across a nine-and-a-half-hour time difference.
16 weeks
Train with Brijesh Joshi from anywhere
Twenty-six years of coaching people in a room, applied to people who are not in the room. Brijesh Joshi started coaching online in 2024, and the method did not change, only the delivery did.
Kalpesh, sixteen weeks, nine and a half time zones away.
Kalpesh trained in the United States. His coach was in Surat. The programme, the adjustments and the food were handled remotely across a time difference that meant neither of them was ever awake at a convenient moment.
It is the clearest demonstration on this site that the coaching is what does the work, wherever the room happens to be.
How it works
- You describe your actual situation. Goal, training history, injuries, what your week really looks like, and what equipment you can get to. The plan is built on the real version of that week rather than the idealised one.
- He writes the plan. Training and nutrition, built for your schedule and your food. If you eat Gujarati vegetarian food, the plan is built on Gujarati vegetarian food.
- You report back and it changes. Weights logged, weight tracked, photographs when they are useful. The first plan is always wrong somewhere; the adjustment is the service.
What the eight sessions actually are
Eight coached sessions a month is roughly two a week. They are not eight workouts — you will train more often than twice a week, and the sessions are the points at which I am actually watching. Between them you work the programme on your own and send me what happened.
A session is a live video call while you train, or a set of videos you record and send with the weights and reps written down, whichever fits your day and your time zone. The first is better and the second is what most people abroad end up doing, because a live call at 6am in Surat is an awkward hour in New Jersey. Neither is worse for the result as long as the video shows the whole lift from a side angle and you are honest about what the bar actually weighed.
What I am looking at is not effort, it is position: where the bar sits over your mid-foot, whether your knee is travelling inward under load, whether your lower back is rounding on the last two reps of a set. Those are things you cannot see while you are doing them and things an app cannot see at all.
What you need at your end
Access to a gym with a barbell, a rack and adjustable dumbbells. It does not have to be a good gym. A phone that can stand up on its own, or somebody willing to hold it, and enough room to film from the side. That is the whole equipment list.
If you are training at home with no barbell, say so before you pay, because it changes what I can programme and there is an honest ceiling on how far it goes. Gym against home training sets out where that ceiling actually is.
Time zones, and the part that goes wrong
If you are training from outside India, the practical difference is not the coaching, it is the reply time: if you are in the US, a question you send at your lunchtime is answered while you sleep, which is fine for programme questions and frustrating if you are standing under a bar waiting for an answer. Send those the day before.
The thing that actually causes online coaching to fail is not distance. It is people quietly stopping the reporting. When the videos stop arriving I am coaching a person I cannot see, which is worth nothing to either of us. If two weeks pass with nothing sent, I will ask once, and if the answer is that life has got in the way, I would rather pause the block than take money for a month of guessing.
What it costs
₹6,000 a month, about $63, for 8 coached sessions. That works out at ₹750 a session.
Payment is by UPI, bank transfer or card.
The same figure whether you are in Surat, in Bengaluru or in New Jersey. The dollar equivalent is approximate, because the exchange rate moves and this page does not.
There is no membership to add on top, because there is no floor for you to use — which is the one respect in which online is simpler than training here, where personal training is charged on top of a gym membership. Nothing else is added either: no supplements are sold, and the food work is part of the coaching rather than a separate purchase.
If you are an Indian living abroad, online coaching for NRIs covers coaching in Gujarati or Hindi, Indian food away from home, and time zones.
Who this suits, and who it does not
The rest of this page is in Brijesh's own words, and a fair part of it is about the people he turns down.
This is for you if
- You live outside Surat and you want this particular coach rather than whoever happens to be nearest to you.
- You trained at the gym and then moved away, and you want the same programming to carry on from wherever you have landed.
- You are living abroad and you want a coach who understands the food you actually grew up eating.
- Your week makes a fixed gym appointment impossible, and you still want to be accountable to somebody who reads your numbers.
- You can already execute the main lifts safely on your own, so the coaching goes into the programme and the food rather than into teaching you to squat.
Look elsewhere if
- You have never lifted before and you live in Surat. Learning to squat and deadlift is faster and safer with someone standing next to you, and both branches are open six days a week, Katargam from 5:00 am and Adajan from 6:00 am.
- What you want is a plan you can follow without ever replying to a message or filming a set. The reporting back is the mechanism that makes this work, and without it you have bought a document.
- You have a specific look you want by a date a few weeks away. The one published online result on this page took sixteen weeks, and if your date cannot move I would rather you kept your money than paid me to miss it.
- Your question is really a medical one, a recent surgery, a pain under investigation, or a condition your doctor is still adjusting medication for. Please see the doctor first, because I cannot examine you from Surat.
- You want supplements written into the plan, or a steroid cycle managed alongside it. The gym sells no supplements and I refuse to coach anabolic steroid use, and working remotely changes neither.
What coaching at a distance can and cannot do
Before you pay for anything, I would rather be plain about where the remote version is weaker than having me on the floor next to you. The largest limitation sits in the first row of this table.
| Part of the work | What the online version does | What it cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Your working sets | You film a set on your phone and send it, and I come back with the correction in writing before your next session. | Nobody is watching you lift as it happens. The cue a coach beside you would give in the middle of the third repetition reaches you a day later, and that gap is the main limitation of coaching remotely. If you are in Surat, personal training on the floor removes it. |
| The programme | Training written around your goal, your week and the equipment you can actually reach, then changed each time you report back. | I cannot make the sessions happen. When the reports stop arriving the programme stops being adjusted, and within a few weeks you are following something that no longer fits you. |
| Food | A plan built on what you already eat, Gujarati vegetarian food included, with portions and timing set out in ordinary terms. | I cannot see what actually goes on your plate. Portions, weekend meals and the food you ate without planning to all have to be reported honestly, because a plan built on a flattering report is worth nothing. |
| The warm-up | Every session opens with yoga and the twelve positions of Surya Namaskar, written into your plan the same way it runs on the gym floor. There is more on that in yoga and gym together. | I cannot put a hand on your back to correct a position, so the yoga is checked from video and from what you tell me about where you feel it. |
| Heavy loading | Progression planned week by week, with the jumps sized to the numbers your log actually shows rather than to the ones you hoped for. | There is nobody to spot you or to take the bar off you. My coaching judgement is that a lifter training alone should leave a repetition in reserve on the heavy sets, and the programme is written that way. |
| Pain and injury | The programme is adjusted around what hurts as soon as you tell me, and we work on what is still available to you meanwhile. | I cannot examine you and I am not a doctor. Pain that is sharp, or that is still there after a few days, needs a medical opinion before we carry on. |
Online coaching FAQ
- What is online coaching with Brijesh Joshi?
- Brijesh Joshi, founder of S R Gym in Surat, writes and adjusts a training and nutrition plan for you remotely, around your goal, your schedule and the equipment you can actually reach. He began coaching online in 2024, after coaching in person in Surat since 1999.
- Can I get online fitness coaching from outside India?
- Yes. S R Gym's online clients have included people training outside India, one published result, Kalpesh, was coached from Surat to the United States over sixteen weeks.
- Do I need a gym for online coaching?
- No. The plan is written around the equipment you have access to, whether that is a commercial gym, a small home setup or nothing but bodyweight and a pair of dumbbells. What you already have shapes the programme, and it is enough to start with.
- How much does online coaching cost?
- ₹6,000 a month, roughly $63, for 8 coached sessions, which is ₹750 a session. It is the same rate wherever you are, there is no gym membership to add because there is no floor to use, and no supplements are sold. Message +91 98790 69960 on WhatsApp if you want to talk through whether it suits you before paying anything.
- How is online coaching different from a downloaded plan?
- A downloaded plan is written for nobody and never changes. Online coaching with S R Gym means the plan is written for your circumstances and adjusted as you report back, which is the part that matters, because the first plan is always wrong somewhere.
Watch a session with no equipment
Some online plans have to start with nothing but the floor and a bit of space, so here is what that looks like, in Hindi, in his own words.
A home workout with no equipment
A follow-along home session with no equipment, recorded during the 2020 lockdown.