Ergo-Nutritional Intervention in Basketball: A Systematic Review

Nutrients

Feb 2022

DOI: 10.3390/nu14030638

Citations:17

Influential Citations:0

Systematic Reviews / Meta-Analyses

Enhanced Details

Methods

Systematic review of ergo-nutritional aids in basketball; participants included basketball players from adolescence to adulthood, both sexes, across college to elite levels; study designs included double-blind randomized trials, quasi-experimental, pre-post, descriptive; PRISMA guidelines followed; 40 studies met inclusion out of 79 screened.

Results

Caffeine at 3-6 mg/kg, taken 60-75 minutes before exercise, improves anaerobic performance and perceived energy, with stronger effects at 6 mg/kg and in morning/test tasks; aerobic performance shows little or no benefit. Protein around 0.5 g/kg or 25 g immediately before exercise and before bedtime, and in combination with carbohydrates (1 g PRO/kg + 1 g CHO/kg) or 20 g CHO + 20 g CRE for 7 days, supports recovery and can improve body composition. Vitamin E (200-268 mg) and Vitamin D (up to 10,000 IU/day) and EPA (2 g) show potential recovery and wellness benefits; results require further study. Magnesium (400 mg/day) and glutamine (6 g/day for 20 days) show positive associations with recovery and immune markers; cysteine (0.5 g/day) shows protective effects on recovery markers. Nitrates (beetroot juice) provide mixed results for acute performance; chronic/longer-term use may aid recovery. Creatine (20 g for 7 days then 2 g/day) may improve recovery markers; beta-alanine (6.4 g/day for 6 weeks) shows no clear benefit; sodium bicarbonate (0.2 g/kg 20–90 minutes pre-exercise) yields mixed results. Overall, evidence is mixed; personalized, sport-specific nutrition planning is advised; some interventions may be limited by safety/regulatory considerations (e.g., bovine colostrum not recommended by WADA); more basketball-specific, high-quality trials are needed.

Limitations

Scarcity of basketball-specific nutrition studies; small samples; heterogeneous designs and outcomes; inability to perform meta-analysis; risk of bias and incomplete reporting; inconsistent dosing/formulations; limited generalizability to studied populations.

Abstract

Using nutritional supplements is a widespread strategy among basketball players to ensure the appropriate provision of energy and nutrients to avoid certain complaints. Particularly in basketball, there is no consensus on the type, quantity or form of use in which these supplements should be administered. Therefore, the main aim of this systematic review is to highlight the ergo-nutritional aids that may be effective in basketball. A structured search was carried out following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA®) guidelines in the Medline/PubMed and Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and Scopus databases until 31 December 2021; no year restriction was applied to the search strategy. There were no filters applied to the basketball players’ level, gender, race, or age to increase the power of the analysis. The results of this systematic review have shown that the effective dose of caffeine to enhance anaerobic performance and the feeling of vigorousness and energy ranges from 3 to 6 mg·kg−1, showing more positive effects when is supplemented 60–75 min before exercise in the morning and in test-based task. On the other hand, vitamin E (ranging from 200 to 268 mg), vitamin D (10,000 IU) and EPA (2 g) may have a potential role in recovery and wellness. The primary limitation of this study is the scarcity of studies related to nutritional supplementation in basketball players. However, a major strength is that this is the first systematic review describing what ergo-nutritional aids may be specifically helpful for basketball. Despite the need for future studies, certain nutritional supplements may have promising advantages for basketball (long-term supplementation of nitrates for recovery), whereas others (β-alanine, sodium bicarbonate, and acute nitrate supplementation) might theoretically be regarded as not interesting for basketball, or even not recommended by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) as bovine colostrum. show less