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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.

Basketball is a team sport, with many fans and practitioners worldwide from all ages and levels. In all cases, players accumulate high levels of fatigue, and there is also limited time to recover between games or practices. In particular, nutrition plays a key role in optimizing performance and recovery. However, it is typical to observe erroneous nutritional behaviors among basketball players. It has been theorized that these behaviors are influenced by habits acquired based on the individual's knowledge. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to conduct a descriptive research of the sports nutrition knowledge and practices in a sample of Spanish basketball players, from athletes under 18 years old ( n = 69) to nonprofessional ( n = 14) and professional adult players ( n = 21). The sample was comprised of 49 men and 55 women. This was a transversal, cross-sectional, observational and descriptive study. All participants ( n = 104) completed an anonymous online survey in order to analyze their sports nutrition knowledge and practices. In view of the obtained results, we can conclude that the knowledge of sport-specific nutrition in players under 18 years old, as well as non-professional and professional adult basketball players, is insufficient through all the categories and levels. The lack of professional support and time management difficulties were identified as some of the main barriers.

Introduction: Introduction: very few works offer a practical solution to understand the nutritional requirements of current basketball. This work offers a theoretical-practical proposal. Objectives: to analyze the fatigue produced during a basketball game and offer a practical solution to accelerate recovery through nutrition. Methods: a search of the PubMed bibliographic database for reviews from the last 15 years and original articles from the last 5 years on basketball. Results: type of nutrient and food supplements are essential for a quicker recovery, in addition to their timing and dose. Conclusions: nutrition before, during and after a game or a high-intensity training session plays a fundamental role in the recovery of the basketball player.