Hang Time - Is There Such a Thing?

Is there such a thing as "Hang Time"? The short answer is - it is a matter of science - "hang time" is not "real". Many people may not believe this, pointing to their favorite player and at the same time exclaim how he can stay in the air longer than anyone else. But, in reality, any basketball player (including "Air Jordan" himself) just makes it seem as if they are hanging in the air.

Here's the details of what is happening when a basketball player goes up for a slam dunk (but any other sport where jumping is involved applies as well).

As he comes down the court, a player jumps and Newton's third law of physics takes over. This law states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. What this means in layman's terms is that the player's foot pushes against the floor and the floor exerts a force back. This action/reaction causes the player to leave the floor. The greater the force the player exerts when he pushes against the floor, the greater the force the floor pushes back with - this results in the player jumping higher into the air.

If a player is running during the jump, his/her center of mass follows a parabolic path, which basically looks like a rounded off mountain top. A persons "center of mass" is located around the middle of their body. This means that, if the person were to stay in exactly the same position during the entire jumping action, his/her midsection (and therefore, entire body) would follow this path. But as a player jumps while running, the center of mass is lifted - and manipulated.

By raising his knees, he raises his center of mass in relation to his head. He does that on his way up. On the way down, of course, he lowers his legs back down and that brings it back to where it normally is. This effectively raises his head relative to the center of mass. The head does not follows the parabola. The head stays at one height.

So the result is during part of the time, the head stays at the same height, but ,during the entire flight the center of mass goes up and down.

In essence, the player's head is the key to why we believe in hang time.

When we look at another person, we don't usually concentrate on the person's "center of mass". We usually look at the head (or at least the upper part of the whole body) . What happens then is somewhat of an "illusion", but it really is happening; the head is staying constant for an longer than normal time because the person changes his center of mass.

Well, if "hang time" is not for real, how is it that one person can stay in the air longer than someone else? The REAL answer is because that person JUMPS HIGHER.

If you can't increase your hang time then, you have to learn to jump higher! How can you do this? There are several "vertical jump programs" that provide instruction on how to do this.