Micronutrients & recovery
Leucine supplementation (50 mg/kg/day) significantly improves sprint performance in basketball athletes by enhancing cytoskeletal dynamics and muscle adaptation.
Basketball players looking to improve sprint speed may benefit from taking 50 mg of leucine per kg of body weight daily, split before and after training, for at least 4 weeks. This should be combined with a balanced diet and regular training. While shooting accuracy showed trends, the strongest evidence supports speed improvements.
Our results suggested that leucine supplementation significantly improved 282-foot sprint performance, reducing times from 17.4 ± 0.9 to 16.2 ± 0.9 seconds in the leucine group... These results suggest that leucine enhances muscle adaptation by regulating cytoskeletal dynamics, providing molecular insights into its role in improving athletic performance.
Why this rating
Small sample size (N=20) and short duration (28 days) limit generalizability, though transcriptomic validation adds biological plausibility.
Source
Unraveling the transcriptomic effects of leucine supplementation on muscle growth and performance in basketball athletes
Shougui Wang et al. · PLoS ONE · 2025
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