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
Yoga and gym training, in the same hour
The short answer
At S R Gym you do not choose between yoga and the gym, because every session here opens with yoga. Brijesh Joshi is a certified yoga trainer as well as a fitness trainer, and he teaches the twelve positions of Surya Namaskar to every new member in their first fortnight as part of an ordinary membership. There is no separate yoga class to book and no extra fee. Membership starts at ₹5,000 for 3 months, at Adajan and Katargam, and the Katargam floor opens at five in the morning.
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
- 7 min read
People in Surat searching for one place that does both usually end up with a list of yoga studios or a list of gyms and no answer to the question they actually asked. This page is that answer, including the part where I tell you what we do not offer.
How the two fit together here
There is no separate yoga class at S R Gym, no timetable to check and no second fee. I want to say that first, because it is the thing most people are expecting when they search and it would be easy to let the expectation stand.
What happens instead is that every session opens with yoga. A member arrives, and before touching a weight, does the twelve positions of Surya Namaskar and a short mobility sequence. Four to six rounds, three or four minutes. Then the strength work begins. That has been the rule here since 1999 and it applies to everyone, from a nineteen-year-old wanting to put on size to a member in their sixties.
The reason is straightforward. Almost everybody who walks in has been sitting for nine or ten hours. Hips folded, upper back rounded, shoulders that have not been overhead all day. Loading a body in that state means the lower back quietly takes work that was never meant for it. A few minutes of moving every joint through its range first changes the body that arrives at the first set.
What is actually included
- The twelve positions, taught. Learned properly in your first fortnight rather than copied from a video, with the breath pattern and the common errors corrected while you do them.
- Correction on the floor, ongoing. The positions people get wrong are predictable, and they stay wrong for years if nobody says anything.
- A mobility sequence suited to you. Somebody with a stiff upper back and somebody with tight hips get different additions to the same base.
- Modifications where they are needed. Bent knees in the forward fold, a lowered knee in the plank, a reduced range in the cobra. The position you can do today is the correct position.
- Then the actual training. Strength work programmed for what you came for, which is the other fifty minutes.
Who teaches it
Brijesh Joshi has coached in Surat since 1999 and dates his own fitness journey to 1991. He is a certified yoga trainer through Swami Vivekanand Yog, alongside personal training certifications from GFFI and others, a special population training certificate for working with people who have additional medical considerations, and registration as a judge with the Indian Body Building and Fitness Federation. He is President of the Strength Bodybuilding Association South Gujarat.
The certificates are photographed and shown onthe credentials page, including the ones awaiting a scan, which are listed separately and marked as such.
The relevant point for this page is narrower than the list. It is that the person teaching you the sequence is qualified in both things rather than a lifter who once did a yoga video, which is the usual arrangement when a gym says it does yoga.
Which comes first, and why it matters
This is the question people actually want answered, and it has a clear answer.
Moving sequences before lifting. Surya Namaskar at a moderate pace is a warm-up. It raises body temperature and moves the joints, which is what you want in the ten minutes before a squat.
Long held stretches after lifting, or on a rest day.Holding a deep stretch for a minute or more immediately before heavy lifting can leave you feeling less stable under the bar. Afterwards, it is useful and pleasant.
A longer practice on one rest day. Twenty to thirty minutes once a week does more for your range of motion than adding rounds to the warm-up.
Keep lifting through a full range. Training through a complete range is itself mobility work. A deep squat done properly is both.
The longer version of this, with the twelve positions drawn out in order and the research set out honestly, is onthe Surya Namaskar page.
Brijesh on yoga and the gym
Two recordings from his own channel: the short one on why these are not alternatives, and a complete twenty-five minute session you can follow at home before you ever visit.
Yoga or gym: the importance of both
Seven minutes, in Hindi, on why yoga and gym training belong together.
Twenty-five minutes of yoga
A full follow-along session recorded for World Yoga Day in 2020.
Who this suits
Four groups get the most out of this arrangement, in my experience of running it.
- People who sit all day. The largest group by far in Surat, and the one where the mobility work changes the most.Training around a working day covers the scheduling side of it.
- People over forty. The clearest research on yoga and flexibility is in older adults, and balance is worth protecting from this point onward. More on that.
- People with long-standing back or neck discomfort.With the caveat below, and with a doctor's involvement where the symptoms warrant it.The back page sets out how that is trained.
- Women who want to train somewhere the approach is taught rather than assumed.What training here is like.
What the evidence does and does not support
I would rather you arrive with accurate expectations than impressive ones, so here is the honest position.
For long-standing, non-specific back pain, reviews comparing yoga against other back-focused exercise find little or no difference between them, and clinical guidelines including the American College of Physicians list yoga among the first non-drug options to consider. That is a real endorsement, and it is an endorsement of yoga as one reasonable option among several rather than as a superior treatment. Against doing no exercise at all, the measured improvements were smaller than the change a patient would notice as clearly different.
For flexibility, the clearest evidence is in older adults and shows improvement against not exercising, with a much smaller advantage over other active exercise. And starting yoga carries a small increase in temporary flare-ups of existing back pain, roughly four people in a hundred against one, which is no worse than other exercise but is not nothing.
None of that says yoga cures anything, and I will not say it either. What it supports is offering both, teaching the sequence properly, and letting you keep doing the thing you will actually keep doing. Thefull set of sources is listed here.
Where, when and what it costs
Membership starts at ₹5,000 for 3 months, with yoga included rather than charged separately. Personal training, where the whole session is programmed and supervised, starts at ₹25,000 for 3 months.The full fee page.
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
Yoga and gym: common questions
- Is there a gym in Surat with yoga classes?
- At S R Gym, yoga is part of every membership rather than a separate class you book. Every session opens with the twelve positions of Surya Namaskar, taught to each new member in their first fortnight by Brijesh Joshi, who is a certified yoga trainer as well as a fitness trainer. If what you want is a timetabled group yoga class with a fixed hour, that is a yoga studio rather than this. If what you want is to train with weights at a place where the mobility work is taken seriously and taught, this is exactly that.
- Can you do yoga and gym together?
- Yes, and they suit each other well when each is put in the right place. A moving sequence such as Surya Namaskar belongs before the weights, where it raises body temperature and takes the joints through their range while nothing is loaded. Long held stretches belong after the session or on a rest day, because holding a deep stretch immediately before heavy lifting can leave you feeling less stable. Done that way, the strength work builds capacity through a range and the yoga keeps that range available.
- Do I pay extra for the yoga at S R Gym?
- No. It is part of an ordinary membership, which starts at ₹5,000 for 3 months. Nobody is sold a yoga add-on here, because it is not an add-on. It is how a session starts.
- Is yoga enough on its own, without weights?
- For general movement, flexibility and daily wellbeing it is a good practice, and somebody starting from nothing will feel real change from it. For building meaningful strength or muscle it is not a substitute for progressive resistance training. That is precisely why both happen in the same hour here rather than being treated as competing choices.
- I have back pain. Should I do yoga or strength training?
- The research suggests you can reasonably do either, and that neither is clearly better. Reviews comparing yoga against other back-focused exercise for long-standing, non-specific back pain find little or no difference between them, and clinical guidelines list yoga among the first non-drug options to try. The practical answer we give is to do both, since the mobility work restores range that sitting has taken and the strengthening builds tolerance. If your pain travels down a leg, or comes with numbness or weakness, see a doctor before starting anything.
- What time can I come?
- Katargam opens at 5am and Adajan at 6am, both until 10pm, Monday to Saturday. Both are closed on Sunday. The early Katargam opening exists for people who need to train before a working day starts. Call +91 98790 69960 to arrange a first visit.
This page is general information from a coach and certified yoga trainer, and it is not medical advice. If you have back pain that travels down a leg, numbness, weakness, or any change in bladder or bowel control, see a doctor rather than beginning an exercise routine.
Come and do one session
Twenty minutes at the side of the floor will tell you more than this page can. Call +91 98790 69960, or message and say which branch suits you.