Is there such a thing as “Hang Time“? The short answer is, scientific laws control this, there is no such thing as “hang time”. Most people will not believe this, pointing to their favorite player and at the same time exclaim how he can hang in the air longer than anyone else. But, the fact of the matter is, 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).
Coming down the court, a player jumps and the laws of physics comes into play. This law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. What this means in layman’s terms is that the player’s foot exerts a force against the floor and the floor exerts a force back. This action/reaction causes the player to leave the floor. The more force the player exerts when pushing against the floor, the greater the force the floor pushes back with - resulting in the player jumping higher into the air.
If a player is running during the jumping process, 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 their midsection. This means that, if the person stayed in exactly the same position during the jump, 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, however, he lowers his legs back down and that brings the center of mass back down. This effectively raises his head in relation to the center of mass. The head does not follows the parabolic path. The head stays at one height.
So what happens is during part of the time, the head stays at the same height, but ,during the entire time the center of mass goes up and down.
In essence, the player’s head is the key to why we believe there is such a thing as hang time.
When we look at each other, we don’t normally look at the person’s “center of mass”. We usually concentrate on a person’s 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 unnaturally long time because he/she 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 they JUMP HIGHER.
If you can’t increase your hang time then, you have to learn to jump higher! How can you do this? Check out these Vertical Jump Program Reviews for more information.
Tags: hang time, how to jump higher, improve vertical jump, jump higher, vertical jump