THE BEST FITNESS PLAN? THE ONE THAT YOU CHOSE
The man on the front of this magazine holds a special honour among all our Men’s Health cover stars. He happens to maintain the record for the longest gap between cover appearances.
The first time Thom Evans flexed under our masthead was back in November 2012. He was 27, and he had recently returned to professional sport as an aspiring GB sprinter, following a career-ending spinal injury he suffered when playing rugby for Scotland in 2010. He was in phenomenal shape, of course – but mostly he was just happy to be moving again.
Now aged 39, Evans still looks every inch your prototypical cover model (and, frankly, does not appear to have aged at all in the intervening years). But his approach to training and nutrition has evolved. As a rugby professional, he tells Men’s Health, it was all about hitting those big numbers – max-out squats, heavy bench presses – which often left him feeling a bit sluggish and heavy.
Today, however, his training is more holistic. He plays golf and tennis. He runs twice a week. He likes to swim and tries to start each day with at least half an hour of stretching. And, yes, as you’ve probably guessed, he frequents the weights room, too. But he’s much more thoughtful, more functional, in the way he goes about it all.
‘Now that I’m a bit older, I realise that you just feel so much better if you can use your fitness,’ he says. ‘At the end of the day, it’s about feeling as good as you can.’
It’s this attitude that made him Men’s Health’s ideal review partner for the new Lingo biosensor, from healthcare company Abbott. (For more on that, turn to p36.) Lingo’s MO is turning personalised data insights into action, to help users build a health and fitness routine that works for them.
Evans is anything but dogmatic in his approach to fitness.
