HOW I BUILT MY BODY MODEL BEHAVIOUR 5% 24"

His path to fitness has been fraught, but now model Thom Evans is in the shape of his life and enjoying the process. It’s time you caught up BODY FAT THIGHS

Thom Evans is a handsome man. His winning smile and chiselled jaw are complemented by an equally enviable body. But while the face is genetic, the physique is one that’s been through the mill and then some – the result of injury, recovery and some subsequently serious graft.

Growing up in Portugal, Evans always favoured the outdoors: “I fell in love with being active as a kid – just running along the beach and climbing trees.” Even now, he says, he prefers to train al fresco, enjoying short, sharp, bodyweight HIIT sessions. It’s an acutely different approach to the heavy barbell work he endured as a Scottish international rugby player. “My neck and arms were totally oversized,” he says. “But it’s a collision sport, so I had to prepare my body as best I could.”

Ironically, it was an injury to his neck that cut his career short. In 2010, less than two years after his first cap, Evans was involved in a life-changing collision during a Six Nations match. “The injury to my spine could have left me in a wheelchair,” he recalls. The road to recovery took four months. During that time he made a decision: to rebuild his body from scratch.

Initially he focused on his innate athletic speed and used sprint training to regain fitness and sculpt his core. But as his new career trajectory has taken in modeling and now acting, Evans has moved away from a sports-specific regimen. Soon he plans to launch a fitness programme that, he says, will put the fun back into exertion. Until then he’ll keep up the outdoor training that both makes him smile and keeps him lean. It is, after all, what pays the bills.