By Scott Gilfoid: WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker says he sees Anthony Joshua doing all the latest and most sophisticated training methods for his fights, and still he fades late in his contests due to fatigue. Parker feels that Joshua needs to do less different things and focus instead on several training strategies that work better for him.
Parker’s trainer Kevin Barry notes that Joshua has been gassing out in his last 2 fights, and he thinks he needs to ask his training team why that keeps happening. Barry says if IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Joshua (20-0, 20 KOs) fades against Parker (24-0, 18 KOs) in the later rounds, he’s going to be in trouble for their fight on March 31 at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales.
“Their team needs to work on a few things,” Parker said to skysports.com about Joshua and his training team. “But I’m not sure why he tires, that’s something he has to sort of figure out.”
It doesn’t take a whole lot of thought to figure out why Joshua has been gassing out recently. Joshua has put on 25 pounds of muscle weight since he turned pro at 230 lbs. in October 2013. In the Olympics in 2012, Joshua weighed 225 lbs. and seemed to be at his best weight. Bulking up to 254 lbs. seems to have been the wrong choice for the 28-year-old Joshua. His weight gain wasn’t a problem for him earlier in his pro career because his promoter Eddie Hearn was matching him against woeful opposition.
The guys that Hearn was signing up for Joshua to knock over left and right fell apart in 1 to 3 rounds typically. Joshua never got to the point where his stamina was a problem for him because the opponents that Hearn was liming up for him were fodder opposition with talent and ability to take a shot. But now that Hearn has started matching Joshua against live bodies in Wladimir Klitschko and Carlos Takam in his last 2 fights, he’s started to struggle. Joshua is no longer getting through fights without getting. It’s clear now that Joshua is carrying too much weight at 254 lbs. for him to fight hard without gassing. Since Joshua seems to be stubborn and more than a little willful about not wanting to take the muscle weight off, he’s going to have to live with his stamina problems and try and work around the problem by figuring out ways for him to get rest breaks when he starts gassing out.
”I see videos posted everywhere of him doing the most sophisticated, new age training methods that man has ever seen and, yet he’s looked very tired in his last couple of fights,” said Barry to skysports.com.
Joshua needs to lose muscle weight and spend more time working on aerobics. I don’t think he’s going to do that. Joshua thinks he can improve by practicing his ring movement, bouncing balls and jumping over obstacles. That’s all a waste in my opinion. Joshua needs to do these things if he wants to improve his conditioning:
• Stop lifting weights
• Work on sprinting. Run 20 x 100-meter wind sprints daily
• Go on long 8 to 10 mile runs daily
• Run hills daily
• Eat less
• Lose a minimum of 30 pounds of muscle to get down to 225 lbs.
Everything we go through is a test of times ☄️ pic.twitter.com/85ms0rHMCr
— Anthony Joshua (@anthonyfjoshua) February 7, 2018
Joshua vs. Parker will be televised on Sky Box Office on March 31st.