Kelsey HigginsonSports Nutrition Coach and Founder at Clutch Day Coaching

Basketball Pre Practice Snacks

17 Jan 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:09

In this instructional video, a basketball coach explains the importance of carbohydrate fueling for optimal performance. He likens muscle energy stores to a car’s gas tank, noting that low glycogen leads to fatigue, the “fourth‑quarter wall,” and a feeling of sluggishness despite good conditioning. He recommends consuming roughly 50 g of carbohydrates about two hours before practice, training, or games. To meet this target, he suggests choosing two snack combinations from a list that includes banana + granola bar, applesauce + muffin, grapes + pretzels, dried mangoes + dates, fruit leather, crackers, and other fruit options. The goal is to prevent energy depletion and enable players to perform at their full potential.

Chapters

My basketball players, these snacks are going to be perfect for you guys to have about 2 hours before your practices, your trainings, or your games. Your muscles have teeny little energy tanks in them the same way that a car has a gas tank. A car cannot go without gas in it. Your muscles, or you, can't go without gas in it. The gas that fills up your muscle energy tanks is carbohydrates, and a lot of them. You know your tank is empty when you feel super fatigued, you're hitting the fourth quarter wall, you feel like you can't make it through practices all the time, you feel like your conditioning sucks even though it doesn't. That's when you literally just don't have enough gas in the tank to make your body go. So all of these snacks are going to fill up those energy tanks. Starting about 2 hours before your practice, I want you to choose 2 of these options to help you fuel your body. Could be banana with a granola bar, it could be an applesauce with a muffin, it can be some grapes with some pretzels, some dried mangoes with some dates. You can mix and match all these. We've got fruit leather, we've got crackers, you can do other fruit as well. You are looking for about 50 grams of carbohydrates pre-practice in order to keep yourself from hitting that wall. This is when you're feeling super tired and sluggish. You might feel like that your legs are trudging through concrete and that you can't go or play to your full potential, even when you're working your butt off. You simply do not have enough fuel in your body, my friends.