Anthony Joshua Uncovered: How Brit's team are plotting Carlos Takam victory – EXCLUSIVE

At yesterday’s press conference ahead of the Brit’s latest title defence, which will see him take on France’s Carlos Takam, Joshua tried to distance himself from the belts in front of him. 

“I still go to my old amateur club and train with kids who are like 10 years old,” Joshua said.

“You can only achieve what you can see and I still keep it real.”

But talking to Rob Madden, who works closely with Joshua on strength and conditioning, reveals that the world’s most feared heavyweight is only getting better.

“Throughout his career he has matured as an athlete and his understanding of things like recovery, sleep and nutrition has improved,” Madden, Joshua’s physiotherapist at The Centre for Health and Human Performance (CHHP), told Express Sport.

“The role of the team around him is to educate him on these things so we don’t constantly need to preach it.

“From a fight perspective, he learned so much from [beating Wladimir Klitschko]. It was fantastic.”

Madden added: “Generally, going into this one, he seems quite calm.

“He always has a calmness about him up to a fight and a level of confidence but I think in the heavyweight game you can’t ever be complacent or think you can switch off so him and his coach are practicing the same things, and getting ready to fight someone who will probably fight from close range and be quite a handful.”

Joshua has had a shorter camp than he was allowed to prepare for Klitschko after the date took several months to be agreed, as well as the venue.

The result is that Joshua has had to stay more gym-fit in the meantime and that the pre-camp fortnight Madden and his team prefer, where they do much of the “boring cardiovascular work”, has not been available to them.

The 28-year-old is also expected to come in lighter than 250lbs at which he tipped the scales in April.

Promoter Eddie Hearn hinted Joshua could be as much as a stone lighter but Madden is confident he will only drop three or four pounds and doesn’t believe there will be much of an aesthetic difference.

In fact, Joshua himself said that had he known he was facing Takam, a more physical, close-range fighter, he might have kept or even added weight.

But he and coach Rob McCracken spent the majority of camp expecting to fight Kubrat Pulev, a Bulgarian with a more amateur style against whom the added speed would be a major advantage.

The change came less than two weeks before Saturday’s title fight – far from “ideal”, in McCracken’s words – but from a physical perspective, nothing has changed. Joshua has still spent fight week piling on the calories and preparing his body for a gruelling evening of business.

There is a plan afoot though. Hearn may have let slip that Joshua is coming in light as a show of bravado, but it is more than just an effort.

When probed, Madden’s hesitation to let slip a false word about Joshua’s plans is understandable – and telling.

The Klitschko fight was a magnificent victory of course, but any coach or trainer would rather see his fighter win by first-round knockout than have to get up off the canvas.

After that, he was given a full month with minimal training to recover.

“Essentially the most important thing after a fight like that is rest,” Madden added.

“We suspected that with the knockdown his brain had taken a decent rattle and I noticed when he was in the ring that he sounded a little bit slurry.

“The doctor and I were quick to make sure his friends were close to him that night.

“The good thing with AJ is he doesn’t really drink much so that helps. He had a lot of down time that week. We did a lot of massage recovery.

“For him, it was just about being with his family and getting lots of rest.

“He was finally able to do nothing and let himself recover.

“It was about banking the sleep and letting his body drop down a notch: what we call in performance terms a ‘deloading’ period.”

Whatever language you’re speaking now, Joshua is locked and loaded.