Is there such a thing as “Hang Time“? To get straight to the point, scientific laws control this, there is no such thing as “hang time”. 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, the fact of the matter is, any basketball player (including “Air Jordan” himself) just makes it seem as if they are floating in the air.

Here’s the details of what is happening when a basketball player jumps (but any other sport where jumping is involved applies as well).

Coming down the court, a player jumps and Newton’s third law of physics comes into play. This law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. What this means then is that the player’s foot exerts a force against the floor and the floor pushes back against the foot. This action/reaction makes the player to “jump” up into the air. The more force the player exerts when he pushes against the floor, the more force the floor exerts back – 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 the middle of their body. 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 that is running jumps, the center of mass is lifted — and manipulated.

By raising his knees, he’s raising his center of mass relative to his head. He does that on his way up. On the way down, however, he lowers his legs back down and that brings it back to where it normally is. This effectively raises his head in comparison to the center of mass. The head no longer follows the parabola. 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 in the air the center of mass follows this parabola.

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 another person, we don’t usually concentrate on the person’s “center of mass”. We usually look at 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 stays in the same place 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 that they can 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.