Strength and conditioning coach Liam Evans has a client list filled with Bermuda’s future elite athletes.

Spread across a variety of sports from rugby to swimming, Evans is using his coaching techniques to improve performance and instil a healthy lifestyle to the next generation of island stars.

Among the athletes attending a group training session at Dame Flora Duffy Stadium last week were middle-distance runner Amaris Munya, rugby player D’Zuri Gill and three-times Denton Hurdle Memorial award winner Khari Sharrieff.

After being around the drills for just a few minutes you get a sense of Evans’s quiet and optimistic approach with the nation’s nascent sporting talent responding well to his calmness.

“As a coach you have to be authentic to who you are or the athletes can see right through it,” Evans said.

“I’m not a militaristic or authoritative coach and I don’t yell and scream.

I’ve had some coaches do that but it’s not my style. I’ve always wanted to make training as enjoyable a process as possible.

“I train a lot of swimmers and their training is gruelling, they are up early in the morning and really working hard, so I don’t want their gym sessions to be just another place that they have to go to train. I want them to be in an environment that they want to be in.

“Consistency and effort are my non-negotiables that they have to buy in to but you can do that by creating an environment in which they want to do their best and it’s not me just pushing.”

Evans started focusing on coaching while at university and has been learning on the job since 2019 when he returned to Bermuda. A former player for the national football team, his first clients were Bascome FC, whom he played for when growing up.

Now a certified strength and conditioning specialist, word is out about his talents with the athletes he coaches producing the goods on tracks and in pools at home and abroad.

But it’s not just elite-level athletes Evans focuses on, with his wider ethos aimed at getting people fit and keeping them that way.

“Not every athlete is going to go on to be a pro and make a career out of sports, so I want to instil a healthy active lifestyle into them,” Evans said.

“Some of my most rewarding times are not when my athletes go on to do big things, which of course is great, but it’s when a kid comes back from college and they may not be playing competitive sports any more but they have carried on working out three times a week.

“I know I work in a performance world but everybody needs physical activity and the data is there to prove it. Being cardiovascularly fit is the best thing you can do for your health and I want to instil that young so as a nation we have healthy adults.”

Evans teaches a wide range of ages and programmes are tailored accordingly, but the coach is keen to underline how his training cuts across all sports.

“With younger athletes, there is no such thing as a 12-year-old swimmer programme and they just need to build a foundation of athleticism first,” Evans said.

“I’m very big on teaching them to be an athlete first, build athletic qualities and as they get older that can translate into whatever sport they get into.

“The outside world may think that the kids I train who are footballers need a football-specific programme, but my aim is to get them faster, stronger and fitter. That will improve their football as well as anything else they want to do.”

Evans does not keep his methods secret and a quick look at his social-media platforms will give you the chance to watch explainers on his process and the way he works. He also has his own Athletics Edge podcast and he feels it is his duty to pass on his knowledge.

“There are no secrets,” he said. “I am just a product of everybody I have learnt from and if they kept secrets, I wouldn’t know what I know today.

“One of my goals is to educate the public on what strength and conditioning looks like and use that for athletic development. There are a lot of old-school methodologies that are still in place today and, coach to coach, everybody has a different philosophy, but there are things that we can improve on, move the field forward and educate the population.

"It’s important that we are not doing things that are a bad use of our time or are detrimental rather than beneficial and it’s important to educate as many people as possible.

“I don’t know everything, I am only five or six years into this and I’m still a young coach, but I’ve always been growth mindset and open to learning. I’ve just come back from a conference and I try to go to at least one or two every year to learn as much as I can so that I can pass it on to athletes and parents.”