Sangram Chougule is an Indian professional bodybuilder from Chinchwad in Pune. He’s a household name throughout the country, due to his Mr India, Mr Pune, Mr Maharashtra, and Mr Universe competition wins.
While Sangram has received critical acclaim for his successes, it wasn’t an easy road to the top. As he lived in a poor neighborhood growing up, it was a struggle for his parents to pay sporting club fees. As a result, he only played sport when he was at school, but was always inspired by the idea of being fit and looking good.
Sangram didn’t have an ideal start in life. He grew up in a poor Indian neighborhood in Pune and lived with his parents, two brothers and a sister. Because there were 6 mouths to feed, his parents had no extra money to pay for him to join sports clubs.
Even though he couldn’t join local clubs, Sangram was always an extremely active child. He played cricket and football as much as he could throughout school – showing his strength and passion during physical education classes.
After completing school, he studied for a ‘Diploma in Electrical Engineering’ at a local college. While he learned a lot on the course, he decided he would follow a more artistic route – signing up to study at an art college in his home district.
While at art college, he transferred his creative vision to his body, beginning to sculpt his muscles in the modest college gym. Luckily for him, the college also had a bodybuilding club in place, so he signed up as quickly as he could – hoping to be able to compete in physique competitions.
When his professors and friends saw the rapid progress he was making, they pushed him to work harder. It was at this point that Sangram began to take his diet and training seriously, posing in amateur inter-college tournaments.
Following his college graduation, Sangram knew that the only career for him was bodybuilding. He worked as hard as he possibly could, training for years to build a well-proportioned aesthetic physique worthy of the world stage. Only then did he decide to go pro.
In 2006, he attended a professional show in his local district and won, receiving the title “The Great Marathi Shree” (The Great Mr Maharashtra) from the judges. Following this victory, he went on to win Mr Pune in 2008 – showing his region what he had to offer.
Sangram had always intended to be an international competitor, and while he received critical acclaim across India, he wanted the whole world to know who he was. He decided to step it up a notch by qualifying for, and taking part in, the Mr Universe competition in Bangkok (2012.)
In the show he posed with confidence alongside competitors from Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Thailand and India, seeing the crowd go wild when he won the entire event. With this victory he claimed his place as, not just an Indian champion, but a world champion.
When he returned to India following this victory, he was a household name in his district, and a well-known face across the country. The confidence this gave him, inspired him to build a gym in his local area. After several years of hard work, he developed this gym into a popular chain in his region.
When he’s bulking, Sangram trains for three hours a day. He only completes weightlifting sessions during this time, as he wants to gain as much size as possible in preparation for the cutting months.
When the competition season is on, he works out for about 4–5 hours a day. During this period, his workouts include a lot more cardio, repetitions, and he rests less in-between his sets. He also re-introduces cardio when cutting, and completes short runs, as well as yoga to burn away his fat and to help with flexibility.
As Sangram trains hard, he keeps his diet as clean as possible to fuel his workouts. His daily meal plan is focused around 5-6 medium sized meals, containing different sources of protein, carbohydrates and fat to meet his macro-nutrient needs.
He usually eats around 2 pounds of fish, a pound of chicken, lots of milk and boiled vegetables. He focuses specifically on following a low carb and high protein plan; this is one example of his daily plan:
Porridge, a protein shake and fruit
Pre-workout drink and a banana
Post-workout drink of water and protein shake
Chicken and brown rice with green salad.
Protein shake and a fruit with vitamins.
Grilled fish and brown rice with salad
Isolate Whey Protein with Casein
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