Fitness trainers at the Talwalkars gym in Jamshedpur. (Bhola Prasad)

Overweight or suffering from recurring stress injuries? Shed your worries at this one-stop fitness shop.

India’s largest gym chain, Talwalkars Better Fitness Limited or simply Talwalkars, made its foray in Jharkhand last month with a state-of-the-art centre on Bistupur Main Road in Jamshedpur. And overwhelming response has already triggered hopes for its first cousin in capital Ranchi.

The ultra-modern gym, which has 100 branches in 50 cities across the country, boasts a sprawling 5,000sqft carpet area at its newest centre and offers a host of fitness and wellness packages.

These include executive fitness and cardio-vascular fitness and treatment of osteoarthritis and repetitive injuries to the anterior cruciate ligament, one of the four major ligaments in the human knee. Power yoga and aerobics sessions are also on the radar.

It boasts hi-tech equipment for treatment of slip discs, cervical spondylosis and lower back pain, and cardio equipment with heartbeat sensors. Some of the new variants of recumbent bike and cycling, stepper, cross-trainer, assisted chin-ups and freedom trainers have been installed. All these are imported from American fitness giant Matrix.

The centre has three distinct wings — a physiotherapy unit, a nutritional counselling centre and a spa and steam unit — and functions under the able guidance of 12 instructors who have undergone two months of training at Talwalkars Academy in Mumbai. A dietician and three physiotherapists add edge to this fitness team.

Zonal operations head Dhananjay Mishra said the decision to open a branch in the steel city was taken in 2010. “We had conducted a market survey and found that the city has a large number of corporate executives and sportspersons who are in dire need of a complete fitness regimen. We opened our centre on January 28.”

Within a fortnight, membership crossed 200 though the starting tariff is a neat Rs 3,500 and goes up to Rs 24,000. “We are planning to launch a second centre in the state capital shortly,” Mishra added.

Branch manager and head physiotherapist Pankaj Jha said they maintained a database of members.

“We prepare cards scheduling training for each member after consulting our panel of physiotherapists at the time of enrolment. Our trained instructors monitor this schedule,” he said.

Industrialist Sourav Jaiswal, who was earlier very loyal to a modern gym at Mango, said he had switched over to Talwalkars. The USP, he says, is attention to individual members and discipline.

“I had this nagging pain in the neck. Four days at Talwalkars and my unease is almost gone. I am deeply impressed,” he added.