In this episode of Carnegie Conversations, Tanya Arnold explores the world of elite boxing performance and how strength and conditioning, sports science, and biomechanics are shaping modern fight preparation. Joined by two-time world featherweight champion Josh Warrington, strength and conditioning coach Andrew Langford, and senior lecturer in sport and exercise biomechanics, Dr Alex Dinsdale (Leeds Beckett University), the discussion reveals what it really takes to perform at the highest level.

Discover how Josh’s training has evolved into a data-led approach focused on building power, speed, conditioning, and recovery at the right time in camp. The panel breaks down the challenge of increasing punch power without losing endurance, managing fatigue, and making weight... while highlighting why collaboration between athlete, coach, and sport science is crucial.

Listen now to learn how boxing, strength & conditioning, performance testing, and recovery come together to prepare for the rematch!

Hello and welcome to Carnegie Conversations where we'll be exploring the science of performance. We're here at the Carnegie School of Sport at Leeds Beckett University where they do some incredible work with elite athletes, coaches and governing bodies. On these podcasts, we'll be talking about some of what they do. We're here in our makeshift studio in the strength and conditioning suite where the likes of Keely Hodgkinson, Josh Warrington and Max Bergin to name but a few have been put.

through their paces.

Well, this episode is very much about the area that we're sitting in because we're to be focusing on strength and conditioning with two-time world featherweight champion Josh Warrington. Andrew Langford, a former Leeds Beckett student now an SNC coach and Dr Alex Dinsdale, who is senior lecturer in sport and exercise biomechanics here. Josh, as we sit here and speak, you're in training to take on Lee Wood. You've had a session already this morning.

How did it go? are you and your strength and conditioning coach still talking to each other?

We are, it's been a good session. Finishing the back end of the week. Fridays are always tough days because, you know, the weekends are my rest period. So, yeah, I walked in today, repeat myself as per usual. I'm tired today, Andrew, I'm tired today, but we end up having some good numbers and performed well today. So I'm happy where we are, just over 11 weeks away and in a very good place.

I'm guessing Josh is pretty good to work with, having known him for a fair few years. I know he's pretty disciplined and driven.

is, you know, people often ask me about different athletes I've worked with and things like that. I think Josh is definitely one of those who, from a work ethic perspective, it's pretty much unmatched. You know, get those rare few athletes with each team who really dedicated, really want to do it. A lot of the time within teams, you have the majority who just get on with it and then you have a few who don't really care. I think Josh is really one of those athletes who buys into it.

wants to train as hard as possible, one that you almost have to pull back a little bit at times because he wants to keep pushing, keep improving, keep doing more, which is great to be honest, you know, can't complain with that, but yeah, it's fantastic to work with.

How has your view, or how has the attitude, how has the importance of strength and conditioning changed over your boxing career?

probably lacking in some areas. me and my old fellow went and had a chat with Kerry Kays who were used to the man behind CMP. he worked quite famously, worked with Rick Yatten, made Rick Yatten into the super fit man that he was and gave him that explosiveness in the body shots. He was the man behind his nutrition as well. So we had a fair bit of talking about nutrition.

We had to make a way in a short space of time. So he gives us some advice. And then I followed up on that because I was massively intrigued. I'm a massive fan of Rick as well. asking questions and stuff. And we just started to adapt S &C into our training. And it didn't seem that long ago, but we are talking 12 years ago. And how it's come on and developed over 12 years is crazy. I over the last.

Five years, you can look on social media and everyone's a personal trainer or can give you tips of what to do. I've seen pages where this is what you'd want to do if you were boxing, this is how you get to the top and you're looking, you laugh to yourself. I've always, the team's always asked for advice of people who've been there and done it and people who are in the know. And again, we've adapted.

Yeah, I think it's just constant learning process really. when certain styles, man will speak with Andrew and say, right, want him to be like this. So Andrew can tailor the training around certain counts.

we will get to that because that is an area I'm to explore. Alex, is this shift that we've seen, know, that strength and conditioning has become something you used to have a fitness coach, strength and conditioning is almost a relatively new phrase.

three was when I got into SNC. So yeah, back in those days, Strength and Conditioning wasn't a well-known, well-established title. It's moved definitely in over the last 15 years. And now we've got SNC supporting most major programmes of their physical development. And then through that period, how we integrate with other people. So working with a physiotherapist, working with a sports science support team is definitely something that's come on in the last 15

ten years where most programs now have that kind of integrated approach to help support your athletes so we don't want them to break down do we we want them to kind of keep getting better but not getting injured anymore.

So Annie, is the conditioning part of strength and conditioning almost become more important?

It very much depends on the athlete. think, you know, you could take the term strength and conditioning and then think that's all it means, strength and conditioning, but really encompasses everything else as well. So you've got agility in there, you've got flexibility, you've got speed. There's all those different components of fitness. And I think as an SMC coach working with a team or an athlete, you're trying to figure out how to strategize a plan where you get all of those aspects ticked off and improve them all. Conditioning is certainly a huge part of that.

probably the biggest challenge as an SMC coach is often a lot of conditioning aspects are met or kind of done as well as part of their team training or the sport training. So you have to try and get that balance with, well, how can we implement some of that as well within what we do that's not taken away from what they're doing as well or complementing what they do. So that's the,

challenging balance as an SMC coach to figure out which aspects of those fitness we can enhance and work on and develop alongside, you know, arguably the more important aspect, which is them actually playing their sport.

I remember a few years back filming with you and your stablemate Maxi Hughes being put through the most brutal circuit training I have ever witnessed. mean, watching it, I was in pain, let alone what it was like for you and Maxi doing it being put through by your dad. Do you still do that? Is that still part of the routine? is that, you know, that big conversations need to be had of we're doing that on that day and so you can't do this and that the other day?

Yeah, definitely. It's something we still do. It's the ad nitty gritty. You know, the sport boxing is very tough and I'm known throughout the business of an engine. Josh Robinson's got this engine, but it all comes down to what we do in the gymnasium. again, things have maybe changed. might not do that specific one. Now, you know, a few more exercises might have been added and taken away.

But yeah, just comes down to over the years, learning new things. I think when we started doing our SNC, it was still relatively new. And still, you had some coaches where they the old school mentality where you need to up at five o'clock in the morning, you need to go run 10 miles. We fight for 36 minutes, that's the maximum, and a 12 round fight. Why do you need to go running for over an hour? So everything that...

we do is it's more or less tailored to our sport. Like I'm known, like I say, I'm a busy engine. That's because I fight for rushes. I'm on the, you know, the front foot. I try to set the pace. Max here, he's a go forward counter puncher. So he's waiting for that attack, bam. And elements of the S &C, you know, tailor into how the game plan will go for the fight.

So how much do you work with the rest of Josh's team? Are you part of tailoring those circuits so that you actually go, actually that one's not good for him?

Yeah, we certainly looked at bits like that. for me, I want to be quite mindful that you don't overstep the mark because there is that respect as well, where I know that athletes like Josh's dad, who've been involved in the sport, will have learned from experience of what works for them as well. So it can't always be just me saying, this isn't in the textbook, you can't do it.

You you kind of have to look at it rationally and analyze it and you can obviously give suggestions on that. And there has been some times over the years where I've said, maybe you don't need to do that as much because we're doing this bits as well and another bit. So you do get that tailoring, but then equally I've learned things from them and there's probably things that haven't been proven yet in the research or things that, you know, world champions and high level athletes are doing that hasn't yet been understood why it works. So there is that bit of that integration as well going on.

but yeah, from my perspective, I think you have to work really closely with the athlete, with the coach, understand what they're doing in their training and then figure that out with what we're going to do in our training. Because, you know, if he comes in on a Friday and he's just on a huge circuit the night before, we're obviously not going to be able to do the power speed type exercises want to do because he's too fatigued. So, you know, you have to figure out that balance. And we're at a point now where we know, you know, how is

training structured that we can do certain things when he comes in with us that are going to complement then what he's doing in his other training sessions and everything else. So we've got that balance, we think pretty good.

Alex, it must be quite exciting just listening to you, the constant learning process of learning off each other.

Yeah, I think it's a really interesting thing, especially within the field of strength and conditioning where you're building your program together to help your athlete achieve their goals, where you're using different types of training, but also working with other professionals like Andrew was saying about how that you're working together to monitor their load. Like for example, in other sports, we're working with, say for example, a football coach, a rugby coach looking at how we're then monitoring their fatigue through their week to peak for a weekend.

Whereas individual sports, you're really going for that one, the kind of the fight that's going to kind of make and break what you're going to do moving forward. So think that's the really nice thing about something this thing in general, that you can be working in lots of different areas. And sort of we're looking for that physical development.

I guess when you go back to the early days, was kind of almost just you and your dad, wasn't it?

It was, yeah it was. Anyone who knows what my old fellow looks like will look at him and think he's not really a picture of health, but he's always had an idea of basic, know, bits of keeping strong and bits of fitness. You know, throughout the years he's done bits of powerlifting and stuff like that.

As time goes on, things change, research change. Me and Andrew was only talking about this morning that science sometimes changes as well. But that's why I like, you know, echoing what he says, communication works well together. And that's why I like to ask Andrew and have Andrew's opinion about certain subjects, because science normally is... I don't want to disclose too much information, give like common secrets, but you know, there's

What were you asking about?

the stuff that I ask him about, he says, back to my science and you can't really argue with that rather than, you you've just heard someone in the local boozler that you need to train like this, because I used to do it back in the day. So, yeah, think back in the early stages, my own emphasis on training was, you know, for a boxer, you need to train hard, you need to train fast. You know, if you train slow, you're to fight slow, if you train fast, you're going to fight faster. So again,

being an explosive fighter, then that's me. So everything you do is in fast bursts. But then as we go onto longer durations and 12 round fights and knowing when to go up and going down and all these different things, what comes with experience, that's when you've got to learn about having a little burst here and then recovering quickly. And that's where the science part of it really needs to come into play. And that's when I think a man would

be not scared to admit they didn't know around that subject. So it would ask out advice, it would ask help and that's probably that's when we started getting involved with more people who know about that stuff.

What does the science tell you across a 12 round fight?

And I think really what the science tells you above what historically was the case, like Josh said, you know, the old school training methods just train really hard, will smash you almost that military style. That gives you a really good foundation, makes athletes, you know, quite robust if they don't get injured. You know, like you said, you've seen these really hard circuits they do. It gives them that tolerance. think what...

perhaps historically was missing was then refining that as you're getting closer to camps, closer to the fights, understanding how the body adapts and changes and being able to tailor that so you can get their maximum strength, maximum power, maximum speed up at the time of the competition. And that is a science because we're constantly monitoring them. We look at the test results. We can do some...

jump tests, we can do some strength tests, you can look at their power and speed and you can see how that changes over time depending on how much volume of training we give them, the type of exercises we give them. So we can plan that quite specifically to ensure that they're reaching those max levels when they get to their fight and that's something that you know without the scientific element you wouldn't really be able to do.

You have so many athletes coming through here. know lot of the rugby league teams, squads come here and do a lot of testing. You've obviously got lot of athletes. Josh, the elite athletes. Are you learning from each one? Is the university building up this huge data profile of research?

Yeah, there's quite a lot of research that goes on within the rugby and the football that come in within here. I'm not involved in that per se, but we definitely have a big group that explore that very well.

really exciting for students coming here to know the amount of elite athletes.

Exactly, yeah. So what we have done really well was part of my role as the course leader of SNC here at Needs Beckett. We link with all of these different providers, which then we can give them the opportunity to have some of our students working alongside these kind of groups of individuals and also helping them develop into kind of moving them on into the next step. So that's been really good for us to help our students move into kind of areas, getting their kind of first foot through the door.

I'm guessing you like the idea of being a bit of a study.

Yeah, I guess so. as I said earlier, I'm constantly trying to learn, I pick Andrew's adult every week.

The idea that people as well are learning off you, I'm guessing appeals.

Yeah, and that's a good thing as well. As Andrew mentioned a little bit earlier, I think that's where we work really well. He's not coming to the team and said, the science says that you shouldn't do that. So don't do that. He's coming, he's listened, he's watched us and he's adapted. And that's what needs to be. I'm not going to sit in and talk bad about anybody, but I know throughout the business,

S &C coaches who've come in and they've kind of taken over the full team. So they've monitored like sparring days and this and that and well, you're to train this day, you can do this, you can do that. You know, this is what the science is, blah, blah. And then the fighters going to ring two, three rounds, they've no engine, you know, not normally because they aren't prepared how they normally train. Whereas like Andrew said earlier, we've worked well together and

know, we're waiting at last camp, right, let's look at the data there. That works really well. That one, too great, so we'll take that home. And I think that, you know, pays dividends when you're just, that bit of communications between each other.

Yeah, I think one of the key things really working with athletes is that understanding, you know, understanding that they are an individual and they will, due to their experiences, due to their genetic makeup, they're going to adapt differently to training compared to one other athlete. So if you give those two athletes exactly the same thing, you'll probably get two different results. So sometimes it's, you know, young coaches might come into the profession with what they've

learn and they've Stanley been given and think, I can just apply this set template and it's going to work the same with everyone. You know, the real world's quite messy. All athletes are different. Their training camps are different. Their coaches are different. So you have to be quite good at being able to adapt that training plan, that planning, that structure to work with that athlete. that it's a constant refinement. Anyone who says they know the ultimate answer is probably lying. You know, you've got to constantly look at the

the data, look at the feedback and then constantly error correct. So you you're refining that approach and I think that's the most important thing really.

How important is getting into the students, the bit that Josh said there, that the listening and the watching, as much as the data and the science, that the things that you think you know, the listening and the watching.

what Josh is wanting to do. Same as with we do like strength training, there's several thousand studies in just certain areas where that wasn't there before. So we can, we've got a good template, but part of the student's journey is to work that actually Josh will have his own unique genetic makeup, which makes him like one of the best in the world. So it's about then tapping into the training that's going to utilise that through testing and feedback and working with him. that's a journey that all of our students have to go on and it takes time.

to make a good athlete, but it also takes time to make a good coach. So we have to kind of help them on that journey.

There was a myth back in the day that you didn't punch that hard. a great engine but you didn't punch it. When you beat Carl Frampton, one of the things he said post-fight is, dispel that myth, he hits hard. Is that something that you have worked on, the strength of that individual punch?

Definitely, definitely. I feel that that were maybe part of the motivation to want to get stronger as well. I mean, when I look back at, you know, I look back at over the years, when I first started, when I booked for my first title, I was 21, fighting a 30 year old. And it was man versus boy. I mean, I've still got pictures back at home of us on the scales and he's

stacked in his like looks really aggressive and I look like innocent. But you know, I did more than held me on in terms of physicalness, fitness and desire and boxing. But there were stages where he had the upper hand and that physical strength. And maybe at the time I probably were fighting at the wrong weight. I probably were fighting a weight or maybe two weights above. And a lot of people had said, you know,

to my old man especially, Josh is not a featherweight, he's a bannum weight. He could do bannum, at least super bannum, but I think you could get him down to bannum. And my old man would always turn around and say, he's not, he's a featherweight. We're talking like four pounds, so to the average person that's like, no, I can pay that out, I can sweat out in Bath, but for elite athletes who are, you know, at very top.

He's quite a bit, he's coming down from maybe half a stone difference. yeah, over the years, I felt that I was lacking something. when he said, he always used to say to me, when you get to that level where you're on the door of Europeans and world level, this is where fighters, you see, go to eight, nine, meaning the rounds, and that's when they start dipping. He said, I want you to be able to go up.

So when you get to round seven, round eight, round nine, and you come out to corner, I want to say to you, right, go up a gear. And if you're struggling there, then you're not gonna be able to do it. But I used to say, well, dad, these fellows are big. know, some of these, I remember fighting Martin Lindsay and I'd watch videos of him eating people with left hooks and they were spinning around and they were asleep before they hit the deck. And I'm thinking, this is a real strong man. I want to be able to, you know,

match him in some way. I've always been a fit fighter and at speed, but like you say, the critics would say, oh, I just really can't punch and to go to that next level. that's around the time as well when we started to bring SNC in there. And the sport of boxing is a funny one because people just think you're moving round and you just hit him. The armchair expert will say, just knock him out. If only. If only, exactly. But there's so much what comes into it.

speed and agility and movement and coordination and timing, little game plans about when to go up and when to go down. When you just take a little bit out of your man and then you can have a few rounds off but then go up a little bit later. So it's fine discipline, but I think that's where, like I say, when going back, it's when we really started to sit down onto punches. And I think I started to bring that into the table when I needed to at the world level. And I certainly believe that...

Maybe if I knew what I knew now, I might be knocking them all out back from my first title, but it's all about learning and developing.

Without giving the game plan away ahead of the Lee-Wood fight, when you're asked to work on something specific, maybe a specific shot, how do you do that? What are you zoning in on as a strength and conditioning coach?

I think it's an interesting concept like idea in general, because you could easily just focus on, like you're saying, with punch power. You could easily just focus on that and do every, all the training focused around that. So we'd say, well, how does he want to throw that knockout punch? These are the muscles we need to really strengthen. And then we do some strength training. Okay, now we need to make them really powerful. Now we need to make them really quick.

Sure, you could do that. And like Josh said, there's technique where he could just sit down on a punch and do it. But how much you're taking away from the rest of what they do as a fighter. So it's that important balance. you know, Josh, a two time world champion fighting the way that he's fought and come through. you do have to kind of be mindful of you don't want to over-focus on trying to develop one area. Having said that, of course, we want to improve all different aspects. So.

You know, through the years, there's been times when, you know, can we make, be able to come out or come in a bit quicker, things like that. So there's again, specific things we can break down and look at and say, we need to improve his, you know, strength through his calves first so that they're going to be strong and robust enough. So then we can do some high impact power.

training that's going to increase the power in them. And then we do that specifically into, well, what's the actual movement that he's wanting to work on? And then that goes into, you know, the work he's doing in training and sparring and pad work. So you've gone through those steps of improving the fundamental physical attributes and then the very specific movements and power that we want. And then specifically in the actual training, what we get. So that's kind of what you can do.

But as I say, you do want to make sure that you don't take away from all the other aspects of the training as well.

I was just going to say there, was going to add to what Andrew was saying there and say that again, coming down to bit of communication over the years, I think when in other sports, and even some individual sports like even tennis or, you know, being on the track, then competitions come thick and fast. In the boxing, you could be sat around waiting for the fight, politics of boxing, know, it's of business at the same time. You could be waiting maybe 10, 12 months, a year. And when you're training,

That's all well and good, but being under the lights for real, that's when it matters for 36 minutes. That's when you really need to peak. sometimes, over that, aspects can come into play. You're a year older. It could be a certain time of year. So there's illnesses going around and you might be going in there, lingering illness and stuff. So you don't always get like that next month to go for that. Or like I say, it could be another year. And some other things as well, which...

I was on about it probably last week. The feedback of each, when I give the feedback to Andrew and I'm always open and honest about how I felt and what I think went right. Things like when I'm doing my S &C and there's been camps where I've done a lot of it and there's been camps where I haven't done too much of it and there's been camps where we've had specific for a certain fight and game plans where I've got to be a bit more robust and in and out of my feet and there's other times where I've been wanting to be a shell now.

I've asked Andrew and I don't think there is so much data about it, like boxing is a physical sport, you you go in there, you take blows and things and maybe the data will never be there. But I've always wondered about how punches and trauma to the musculoskeleton can have effects and how could you prepare for that? I mean, you're never going to be able to really prepare for taking a punch. No one wants to get punched and I don't think no one's going to you stand and hit him for data purposes.

On the feedback, I personally know, and I like to say I write things down for many years, I've had diaries from my camps, I've written down feedback of what I think and after fights as well. And I always feel that when I've done my Beats Ambassador SNC, as well as everything else, when Beats Ambassador SNC, when I've got that solid strength and that shell, that muscular shell, that inside, taking punches on the arms and things like that, I feel a lot more robust compared to when I haven't done it.

So is that that something specific you're working on?

That's definitely a part of it. And I think that's a really good point Josh brings up that sometimes there might never be perfect data in one area because.

I'm sure you'd agree there'll never be a research study that's going to be approved where we can just hit someone to see how their muscles respond. It's just not going to happen, but you can use the underlying principles of science to make a rationale for well, if he gets used to taking these shots and we get him stronger and he's got more muscular chore there, then that probably is going to protect him. We get the feedback from Josh and Josh says, yep, I feel a lot stronger.

psychologically I feel a lot better, then that gives us that evidence we need to continue putting it in his program.

an interesting thing. It is a learning process, it is evolving, but there isn't data for everything. You know getting hit on the chops is probably not a great idea. But that is part of the process, isn't it? There are things you can't get the data on.

Yeah, exactly. And I think that's why it's an exciting area to work in because you can't get that perfect study to tell you the answer. Sometimes you have to kind of learn it through what the experience is. We do know strength training is really important for absorbing shocks. The stronger you are, the better you can absorb it. And I think that's about where we are with it.

quite interesting. You're face lit up when you talked about how exciting a field it is. I mean, it is something that's changing. Are you finding it exciting being in middle of it?

Yeah, I think even though, like I was saying, we know a lot more, there's still a lot more for us to learn. I think we've sort of really bought into exploring kind of how we develop physical performance and that's all holistically from aerobic anaerobic fitness to speed, agility, change of direction. Yet we're still finding better ways to train and then that can then, from a research perspective, that can then...

drip into practice, which then you can then make better practitioners and then they'll tell us different ways to make that kind of sprint training or jump training more interesting. We'll start exploring it all again. So it's quite a nice cyclical kind of process.

One of the things that is fairly unique about boxing is you've got to make weight. The amateur always is told muscle weighs more than fat. You've got to make a weight. How do you balance that part of the conditioning? You could build up a bigger muscular shell, but you're going to weigh more. You're not going to hit that weight.

That's a point, that is a fair point. Again, we were only talking about that this morning and there's been moments when the phone's gone, Josh, you might be out in five weeks, right, OK, what's your weight? So, you know, all team will get together, we'll laser amongst each other and then I'm lucky enough that my wife has got bit of knowledge in food and that aspect.

No, it's always a bit tough, but like I say, it's a bit backwards really because you're putting your body through hell constantly and sometimes you're not giving yourself the calories. I mean, you look at someone like a cyclist, puts their body into crazy, crazy states and heart rates go through the roof and stuff and they're consuming three, four, five thousand calories for that, but we've got to do opposite.

I mean, the duration is not as long, but taking trauma to the body and it's, one-to-one combat, it takes its toll physically. But again, you've got to make that way, got to make that penalty. And to be able to go into sessions day in, day out, but then also repair, it's a real fine balance, but it's just bits and bats what we have learned over the years. Again, working with Andrew, learn...

because Andrew records bits and bits like body fat percentages. And we know from me standing on my scales at home to coming to here and then reading the body fat percentage, how much weight I have left or could potentially take off without affecting. And so then I'll give that feedback back to Natasha at home and then she can cater for food around there. So it's all bit of a team.

aspects and for instance, if I've got a sparring session, I know that it's going to burn so much. I know that I can eat this beforehand and but then I've got a steady day, you know, then the meals will be a bit lighter. I've got a bit of sweet tooth, so they'll say bye bye to cheesecakes and things like that. But again, with, you know, I'll come back to here on a Friday and, you know, Andrew will after the session will analyse how strong I've been.

And if everything's still up there, but the way it's coming down, we know we're in very good place. And this all only comes from being up here in the science.

Difficult to balance act, is it?

It's definitely an extra consideration in something like boxing where you have to worry about that weight limit. I just said in some other sports where you can kind of just eat loads of calories to make sure they're fuelled for the training and performance. You know, you don't need to worry about that too much. But boxing is a bit more of a challenge with that. Josh is one of the better ones, I'd say. He's not like some of the ones you might see who, you know, balloon up after a fight and it's a real struggle.

Josh is very professional. stays in pretty good condition other than maybe last year. A few too much ice cream, generally he stays pretty good. His lifestyle has always been good. He doesn't really drink. He eats pretty healthily anyway. So obviously there is that weight cut that we have, but it's not too extreme. But we've definitely found a good method of analyzing that. Like Josh says, we do record his body fat percentage.

every week so we'll have a good idea where he's at, how far out he is from the fight. So at the moment it's like 11 weeks out. We know what his weight is now. We know his body fat percentage so we know how much we kind of know what from previous fights what body fat percentage he needs to be fight week. So we know how far out from that. So we can see what amount of weight he needs to lose by then and you can kind of then hopefully plan that. So he's doing it a little bit incrementally each week.

rather than just getting right to the last week and then starving himself and not doing it, because obviously that's not ideal either. So we've got that quite good balance, I think. And probably the other factor that you mentioned before was how getting them stronger could give them more muscle, which makes them way more, which is a factor as well. But that's something that we've learned pretty well through strength and conditioning science over the past 20, 30 years.

is that depending on the type of training that you do in terms of sets and reps and intensities, you can increase strength quite a lot without putting on too much of the muscle mass, which is obviously what is quite important for us.

And that's though boxing is very specific, you have to make a certain weight on a certain day and there are checkpoints all the way through. Most athletes do have an optimum weight, don't they? Whatever their sport, to be able to move the fastest or whatever. And is that part of the whole process of finding for each individual where the best place is?

think what we do know is about physical characteristics. So we know in sport now, what is it kind of key physical training, but then also testing that we can do to make sure we're maintaining or improving performance. Strength is just one of them and strength to weight ratio for most sports is probably the most important thing, knowing that someone's getting stronger, but then keeping a similar weight or going up like power to weight ratio again in boxing, that's really important. developing those.

profiles, but then testing. So that's another kind of key things that you guys have been talking about, about testing and monitoring, knowing that as you're improving those test scores, that's going to help them in their actual performance of their support.

I don't wish to bring up your age, you are considerably younger than me, but you are towards the back end of your career. Is there a key thing that you wish you'd told your younger self about the whole strength and conditioning process?

you say that about the age and I was wondering what this were. One of the fellows in my gym over there. I don't know if over the years, my old man's like talked about me being in my peak in my late twenties, but I don't think I was. And I feel like I potentially might be eating it now and that's 35 and maybe 10 years, maybe 20 years ago, people have said that's quite old for the box of that. You know, especially for a

a smaller weight, the heavy weights can go considerably longer. But things have changed over the years and I say the data is constantly changing and studies more studies are coming out and like Andrew said in between fights I keep well, keep in good shape, I don't drink and things like that. So these all have...

an effect on a person when they're going into the next phase of training or whatever, getting ready for the next competition. And I think just keeping that base, I've always known that. If anything, what I would tell my younger self is just knowing the importance of rest, knowing the importance of rest and stretching, staying loose, because I think from a long time, maybe that's just been my mindset.

always wanting to be better, always wanting to improve. There's some days where no matter what, I've just done whatever I wanted to do and they've gone against me sometimes. My old man's instruction of just relax, just take a day off and certainly stretching because I think when you're a younger athlete, you can get a little bit loose but...

Before you know it, you're getting out of bed and my back's Wait till you get to my age, man. You're picking up your kids at home and that's a bit sore. yeah, think just that recovery process. But I'd like to think that I've got to learn about it just in the right time. So I do know the importance these days of taking an evening to have a really good stretch out and loosen up.

Music to your ears, isn't it?

Yeah, again, Josh is, know, he is a professional and he always has been really throughout his career, even if he didn't do some of the SC stuff we do now early in his career, he was still training, he was still eating well and doing all the good stuff. So and that plays a big factor into the age thing. I think sometimes people just see the number on the paper and assume that 35 is old, but it really does.

very, you you look at some really high top level athletes now in the world. Cristiano Ronaldo is over 40 now, you Roger Federer played till over 40, LeBron James still playing the NBA over 40. You know, some people get to that age and they are totally beat up because they've maybe not lived the best lifestyle or enjoyed themselves too much, haven't committed as well to the training. But the people who are really professional, who've not drank

much alcohol maybe who've eaten well, who've trained hard their whole career. You know, they can be 35 like Josh and he's still improving. We're still seeing improvements in his physical attributes. So where people think, oh, 35, he must be well on the decline. It's going to be done. Physically, he's stronger than he's ever been, more powerful than ever been, quicker than he's ever been. So I think because of how he's approached it and how he's developed, you know, we're not seeing those drop-offs.

I think inevitably you will, like you're saying, in recovery, probably becomes a little bit harder. You know, we just start to get to late 30s, 40s reaction time maybe starts to drop a little bit. But, you know, if you look after yourself, I think these days as an athlete, you can push to 40.

Is that one of the exciting things that you are actually the research, the work that you're doing, you are lengthening careers?

We do know at points that we'll have neuromuscular decline, but that actually happens a bit later than what we often think about. It's late 30s. So getting the right team, getting the right training, then we can be really lengthening those careers really well. Developing those kind of strengths will keep that strength going as well. We know that the strength decline is very slow, so certain types of training can help boost that through, which means that people can still carry on getting stronger.

Just a final one to you Alex, that we are talking about an elite athlete who is in camp for a fight, but for all of us, strength and conditioning is important, isn't there? And there's much more knowledge about just what the average human, particularly in my age, should be doing. This isn't just something for an elite athlete.

Yeah, that's right. In the broad sense of health and training, we've really unpicked the fact, the importance of like a holistic training, knowing that getting stronger now, there's lots of research showing that that has incredible health benefits for mortality. We didn't really know that before, but strength training is really important for that. And then the same with cardiovascular fitness is another kind of important things.

And then also when you think about, well, I'd like to move around a bit more when I get to my later decades. So actually strength training really helps that because it helps keep you mobile. And it's been some brilliant research with people in the elderly about how much greater quality of life that you have. So it's not super straight into the world of strength and conditioning, but that broader world of kind of physical fitness is actually kind of really important for everybody, I think.

Josh, we wish you the very, best of luck in there and good luck with being in camp. If you want to know more about what Andrew and Alex get up to here at the university, check out the show notes. Do like, follow and subscribe to the podcast. We will see you next time. Goodbye for now.