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How Dave Allen became ‘as fit as he’s ever been’ to face Arslanbek Makhmudov
By his own admission, Dave Allen has been a “decent fighter” for years, but never hit the top tier of the boxing world. His initial clash with Johnny Fisher was the first time he put a “proper pre-fight” camp together.
“Years ago, I was just turning up for the craic really. I was a young kid having a really good time of it – turning up, not training and having a good time,” he told talkSPORT earlier this year. “Now, I’m a professional sportsman.”
His updated approach has paid off. The 33-year-old upset the odds to stop Fisher at the second time of asking in May, and a recent post-training photo on Instagram triggered fans to say he is in the “shape of his life” as he makes his final preparations for his upcoming fight with Arslanbek Makhmudov on Saturday night.
Trainers even suggested they might be “looking at abs on the scales” during the weigh-in, with head coach Jamie Moore joking: “Just for the craic, we should draw them on anyway.”
This is how Allen has overhauled his training and diet to send his performance levels skyward.
Diet
In a “day in the life” video with DAZN, above, Moore tells him: “I don’t think it’s just [because of] your weight, because your weight’s not come down that much, but the actual stuff you’re putting in your body is better for you, so you’re fuelling yourself better now.
“You look so much f***ing quicker. And because you’re a bit quicker and your coordination is better, your timing of that left hook is f***ing dynamite.”
These comments suggest Allen has done something known in the bodybuilding world as re-comping. This is shorthand for body recomposition, with the target usually being to lose fat and gain muscle. Through this process, you can stay at a similar weight while significantly changing your appearance.
Re-comping is a topic I recently discussed with Dr Milo Wolf, founder of training app MyoAdapt, and the holder of a PhD in sport science, specialising in strength training. He says that gaining muscle and losing fat simultaneously is possible, although it is easier for newcomers to strength training, as well as those with favourable genetics.
“Calories in, calories out, is a simple heuristic,” he says. “But when it comes to what actually happens inside your body, you can definitely gain muscle while losing fat.
“[In our research] we measure people all the time – we measure their muscle growth and fat loss, and so we see this happen in real time.”
However, boxers face a couple of bonus challenges beyond those encountered by bodybuilders when re-comping. Firstly, they need to stay within a certain weight bracket, and secondly, they need to maintain or improve sporting performance.
This usually means consuming enough protein to build and repair muscle around training, and enough carbohydrates and/or fats to fuel intense sparring sessions.
Overall calorie intake will then usually sit at or slightly above maintenance – the point where your calorie intake and expenditure are equal, causing your weight to remain the same – to allow for recomposition. Wolf suggests a “modest surplus” is likely your best bet of achieving this.
“Dave, for me, is in the best shape of his career,” says Moore. “He’s in the best shape I’ve seen him so far.
“He’s got his nutrition in order, and I think that’s had a massive impact in the way he’s performing and the way he feels.”
Given his self-professed penchant for “anything unhealthy”, including dipping a loaf of bread in ice cream, this has made a considerable difference to how he moves in the ring.
“How he’s subscribed to everything we’ve done is unheralded really,” trainer Nigel Travis adds. “By his own admission, in the past he’s never really committed wholeheartedly to it.
“It’s amazing, when you do commit and you do give yourself fully [to the process], how good you can be.”
(Matchroom Boxing)
Training
Details of Allen’s training, particularly away from the ring and in the gym, are few and far between online. In the DAZN video, he starts his training day – a “tech day” – with 9am technique training.
He follows this with a session training one of his fighters, followed by some targeted abs work, and then plans a run for later in the day.
“I sparred yesterday and I’m sparring tomorrow, so that was just a steady session there,” he says after the technique training. “I’m getting a bit faster now, getting a bit slimmer, and the fight’s not far away. Today’s a steady day really, getting ready for sparring tomorrow – that’ll be heavy duty.
At 12.30pm, he goes for a walk. This is for the mental benefits as much as anything physical, he tells DAZN cameras.
“I like to walk,” he says. “I walk every day and camp all night, even when I was really fat – I’d always walk and get myself out of the house. It’s just a bit of exercise, a bit of relaxation and a bit of fresh air.
“They’re therapeutic for me. I do a lot of my thinking while I'm out here.”
Regular sparring, boxing work, runs and walks adds up to a decent amount of daily energy expenditure. Combine this with the fact he is a 6ft 3in heavyweight boxer, and it is safe to assume he has to eat a lot to support these high activity levels.
Connecting the dots, it is also likely there is a decent dose of strength training in his weekly routine.
Re-comping requires muscle gain – muscle gain comes from a combination of an appropriately calorific diet, sufficiently high protein intake and strength training exercise taken close to failure.
For this reason, it is fair to assume that Allen’s time in the gym comprises a blend of exercises to develop the attributes needed to succeed in the ring; low rep, high weight exercises for absolute strength, low rep, moderate weight exercises performed explosively to develop power; moderate-high rep, moderate weight exercises to build muscle.
This, blended with regular sparring, technique work, running and a dialled-in dietary approach, is likely what delivered the fighting fit Dave Allen we now see.
Watch Dave Allen vs. Arslanbek Makhmudov live on DAZN
Allen vs. Makhmudov is live on DAZN this Saturday night, October 11. Watch the fight and whole card with a DAZN subscription.
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