Can You Increase Your Hang Time?
We have all heard of “Hang Time“, but is it valid? To get directly to the crux, scientific laws manage this, there is no such thing as “hang time”. Some people will maintain that this can’t be - exclaiming how they have seen one player or another hang in the air longer than another. The fact is that no matter what it may seem like, no player can float in the air longer than any other..
Here’s the particulars 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 each action has an equal 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. The more force the player uses while pushing against the floor, the more force the floor exerts back - resulting in the player going higher into the air.
This action is compounded as a player is running while he is jumping. His center of gravity will follow a parabolic path through this process. A persons “center of mass” is situated near their midsection. This means that, if the person were to continue in exactly the same position for the duration of the complete jumping action, his/her midsection (and consequently, whole body) would follow this path. However as a player jumps while running, 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. As he comes back down then, he puts his legs back down. This makes his center of gravity lower. This in effect raises his head in relation to the center of mass. The head does not follow the parabolic path. The head stays at one height.
So what you get is for a fraction of the time 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 middle of their body. We usually concentrate on a person’s head (or at least the upper part of the entire body) . What happens at that second is a bit of an “illusion”, but it really is happening. The head stays in the same place for an abnormally extended time because the person changes his center of mass.
If one person can’t hang in the air longer than another, what is the answer? The only alternative left is that he 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 additional information.
To get the most out of your vertical jumping exercises, you should think about a vertical jump training program. Check out these Vertical Jump Program Reviews to check which are rated the best and to find more information on Improving Your Vertical Jump.