2.1. Study Participants
The study was performed on 24 young elite male football players (17.2 ± 0.7 years) and 23 sex-matched amateur athletes (30.2 ± 4.6 years), as previously described [Elite athletes’ enrollment, training schedules, and exclusion criteria were previously described [This study was approved by the institutional review board (C.E. 4662), and the randomized controlled trial was registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (Identifier: NCT03288623).