We have all heard of “Hang Time“, but is it real? To get immediately to the point, scientific laws manage this, there is no such item as “hang time”. Many people will not consider this, pointing to their favorite player and at the same time exclaim how he can hang in the air longer than someone else. The fact is that no matter what it may look like, no player can hover in the air longer than any other..

Here’s the information of what is happening when a basketball player jumps (or any other game where jumping is concerned).

Coming down the court, a player jumps and the laws of physics take over. These laws state that every action has an equivalent and opposite response. What this means in layman’s terms is that the player pushes against the floor and the floor exerts a force back. This action/reaction makes the player to leave the floor. When a player pushes harder on the floor, the floor pushes back harder causing the player to be propelled higher.

If a player is running throughout the jumping process, his/her center of mass follows a parabolic route, which in essence looks comparable to a rounded off mountain top. A persons “center of mass” is situated around their midsection. This means that, if the person were to continue in just the same position for the extent of the entire jumping action, his/her midsection (and therefore, full body) would go along this route. Typically though, a player does not continue in the same position. He will bend and twist.

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, of course, he lowers his legs back down and that, in turn causes the center of mass to come back down. This in effect raises his head in relation to the center of mass. The head does not follow the parabolic path. It remains in the same place.

So what you get is for a part of the period in the air, the head stays at the same height, but ,during the whole time 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 one person looks at another, they tend to not look at the center of their body. We usually concentrate on a person’s head (or at least the upper part of the complete body) . What happens at that second is a bit of an “illusion”, but it truly is happening. The person’s center of mass is changing and this causes his head to continue in the identical location for a longer time.

If one person can’t hang in the air longer than another, what is the answer? The only option left is that he can JUMP HIGHER! If you can’t improve 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.

To get the most out of your vertical jumping exercises, you must consider a vertical jump training program. Check out these Vertical Jump Program Reviews to see which are rated the best and to get more information on How To Jump Higher.