Hang Time – Is There Such A Thing?

To get straight to the point – It is a matter of science – There is no such thing as “hang time” when a player jumps. Many people will not believe this, pointing to their favorite player and exclaiming how he can stay in the air longer than someone 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 really happens when a player does a slam dunk (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 states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction; the player pushes against the floor and the floor exerts a force back.

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 their midsection. This means that, if the person stayed in exactly the same position during the jump, his/her midsection (and therefore, entire body) will follow this path. But as a player jumps while running, the center of mass is lifted — and manipulated. By bringing his knees up, he’s raising his center of mass relative to his head. He does that on his way up. On the way down, of course, he lowers his legs and that lowers his center of mass which is bringing it back to where it normally is, which effectively raises his head relative to the center of mass. The head no longer follows the parabola. The head stays up there at one height.

So what you get is during part of the time, the head stays at the same height. The center of mass goes up and down, through gravity and him manipulating his center of mass. In essence, the player’s head is the key to why our eyes believe there is such a thing as hang time. When we look at each other, we don’t normally look at our “center of mass”. We usually look at the head (or at least the upper part of the whole body) . But this really is happening; the head is staying constant for an unnaturally long time because he/she manipulates his center of mass.

If there is really no such thing as “hang time”, how is it that one person can stay in the air longer than another person? The REAL answer is that they can JUMP HIGHER. Check out our reviews of the vertical jump programs to see which one can help you improve your hang time.