alanine supplementations improvement of highintensity game activities in water polo objectives to investigate whether 4 wk of alanine supplementation improves total distance covered distance covered and time spent in different speed zones and sprint numbers during a simulated water polo gamedesign doubleblind parallel and placebo controlled a total of 11 male water polo players participated in the study divided randomly into 2 homogeneous groups placebo and alaninemethods the participants performed a simulated water polo game before and after the supplementation period 4 wk they received 48 gd1 of dextrose or alanine on the first 10 d and 64 gd1 on the final 18 dresults only the alanine group presented a significant improvement in total sprint numbers compared with the presupplementation moment pre78 52 arbitrary units au post202 78 au p002 furthermore alanine supplementation presented a likely beneficial effect in improving total distance covered 83 and total time spent 81 in speed zone 4 ie speed18 ms1 there was no significant interaction effect grouptime for any variableconclusions four weeks of alanine supplementation slightly improved sprint numbers and had a likely beneficial effect on improving distance covered and time spent in speed zone 4 in a simulated water polo game